


Ellipsis

by EvilShtriga



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Aphasia, Explicit Language, Flashbacks, Hurt/Comfort, I may add more, Kill Switch, M/M, Panic Attacks, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Rating May Change, Recovery, Sputnik, Stucky - Freeform, Torture, Trigger words, Warnings May Change, broca's aphasia, but also angst, post-CATWS, relationship anarchy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-11-20
Updated: 2017-04-07
Packaged: 2018-05-02 14:26:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 15
Words: 45,683
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5251619
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EvilShtriga/pseuds/EvilShtriga
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He passes by Steve’s apartment again well past midnight, fully intending to spend at least a couple minutes nearby, but Steve’s up and looking out the window, so Bucky pretends he has somewhere to go and doesn’t dare look back.</p><p>Or: Bucky's off the radar. Steve tries to find him. Things go very wrong before they can get a little better.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

The sad sounds of violin fill the hall of the station, somehow deepening the loneliness that keeps him hunched in the corner. The boy who plays probably doesn’t even know he has any audience. Well, better for him. After all, nobody would want the Winter Soldier watching them from his hiding place.

It isn’t really a hiding place, just a bench fixed to the wall, his spot behind the pillar chosen on pure instinct. And he isn’t really the Winter Soldier anymore. Sure, he has his metal arm, he has killed more people than he can remember, he still is one of the best fighters in the country, maybe even in the whole world. But his obedience is gone, his confusion gradually fading. His choices are his again, and even if he has no idea where he’s going these days, he knows his journey is not a mission assigned by a handler but his own decision.

The boy keeps playing the same tune and Bucky’s surprised to find it doesn’t bore or annoy him.

Technically, he knows he isn’t t h e Bucky anymore, but he wouldn’t bear to call himself the asset. “Bucky” is just as good as anything else, and it was the first name used on him for so many years. It did the trick back then, it fucking confused him and he paid for it in the most painful way, but then it also opened his eyes despite the blindfolds Hydra had forced on him.

So yeah, he could be Bucky. At least for the time being. The name sounds reassuring, like a warm blanket he can wrap himself in whenever he feels like he’s freezing again. He isn’t sure how a damn name, two stupid syllables, can ward off the coldness that creeps into his bones whenever he remembers the cryo tank or the even colder eyes of the Secretary, may the fucking kinky devils fuck him hard with fire in whatever fucking hell he is right now. But somehow that word is more than just an empty sound, and he holds on to it every sleepless night, turning it over in his mind and sometimes even mouthing it soundlessly. It’s his cue to remember, his cue to remain.

He stretches his legs, shutting off all those tiring and difficult thoughts. The violin keeps singing in the boy’s hands, far across the hall, and Bucky thinks it might be his first time listening to music since the 1940s. He doesn’t recognize the song, and while it sounds immensely sad, he finds some peace in it. Like there’s maybe a way to let all that sadness settle in a person instead of consuming them.

He’s not sure he can be that person. Maybe one day. Once he figures out where he’s really going.

***

He wakes up to complete silence. He didn’t even know he drifted off, and now the boy and his violin are gone. He realizes why when two security men appear on both his sides.

“Shuteye at the station, you filthy scum?”

Bucky bolts to his feet.

“I was just leaving.”

“No, you weren’t.” A strong hand pushes him back and Bucky finds himself pressed against the wall, though still standing more than sitting. He doesn’t want to fight his way out of this, but he will if words aren’t enough.

“Please, I mean no harm. I’ll go and you’ll never see me again.”

“Of course. We’ll make sure of that.”

The man who’s holding him does the talking, but Bucky can see the other one’s stance change. He shifts his weight slowly, obviously, like he’s actually announcing his attack. The fist that shots towards Bucky’s face gets stuck in the metal hand and the wrist gets twisted painfully. The attacker is on his way to the floor when Bucky pushes himself off the wall and charges the other man. A quick blow in his chin is enough to send him reeling.

This is enough. Bucky runs for the exit before he really hurts them.

It’s cold and damp outside, not exactly raining, but there’s definitely some kind of unpleasant humidity hanging in the night air. Not surprising considering the fact that Bucky went to the station to get some shelter from the rain in the first place.

He runs three blocks, then slows down to a walk. There are few people in the street and none of them seem to be giving a shit about a hobo as long as he doesn’t talk to them. Well, he doesn’t. It’s not like he has anything to tell them after all.

Actually, he’s glad they don’t notice him. He knows he should rebel against not being seen as a person, after all those years of being a tool and a killing machine, after all the contempt and disgust in the handlers’ eyes, after all the shoves and blows he never earned. But this is different. If he’s not a person to those strangers, they won’t look at him and they can’t recognize him. This means they can’t report him to any remaining Hydra agents.

He doesn’t really mind sleeping on the pavement and eating restaurant leftovers as long as he’s safe. He prefers no shelter over any Hydra base. No bed and even no sleep are better than the stasis.

And, above all, no real human contact is better than constant lies and manipulation.

He enjoys not being a person because he can do his own thing without being noticed.

He walks all the way to the only building that matters. The only place he revisits, even though he’s never been inside. The lights are out and Bucky prays the man who lives there is sound asleep and not accidentally looking through the window. Bucky is way too visible just standing where he is, but then he can’t find it in him to move. He keeps his gaze glued to the one specific window, trying to remember the arrangement of the room and imagine what it must look like at the moment.

The door to the building slams open and Bucky quickly glances down and fumbles with his pockets. Setting off running would be too suspicious, even the dumbest person in the world would know something’s wrong if he did.

The man shots him a brief glance and opens his mouth, but Bucky’s faster.

“Got light, sir?” he asks, trying to sound as raspy as his throat will allow. It works, the man is clearly surprised and a little more alert, but he’d never consider Bucky anyone worth his attention. He leaves without a word, heading straight for the car parked on the other side of the street.

Bucky watches him drive away, then turns back toward the building and the dark windows. All looks calm and he hopes it is so.

It starts to rain again but this time he doesn’t mind getting soaked. It’s not very cold, after all, he’ll be fine, only a little wet and maybe a little cleaner. It doesn’t matter.

It’s enough to know Steve’s warm and dry in his apartment.

***

The rain recedes at dawn, right after Bucky finally decides to find some shelter. He’s getting hungry and a bit cold (maybe he overestimated his resistance a little?), but at least the brisk air swipes the sleepiness from his face. He’ll rest properly tomorrow. Today his mind is still too loud.

It always gets louder when there are more people in the streets, more noise around, more commotion. He can’t sleep like that. And then, at night, the world feels so much nicer, more peaceful, more at ease. He just doesn’t want to miss it.

His mind somehow adjusts to his environment, showering him with distant, hardly discernible shards of memories as people and objects hurry all around him. It made him dizzy at first and he had to take it slow, walk a block at a time and stop to get some rest, but he knows how to manage it now. He’s hit with a stronger thought from time to time, but mostly he keeps all that chaos at bay.

Roaming the streets for no reason and in no real direction is a little boring if it becomes a daily routine, but Bucky quite likes it. He wouldn’t want to be one of the people constantly hurrying somewhere, pursuing their missions, their careers, running to catch their buses and driving madly to get the best parking space for themselves. He’s had his share of moving around only for a clearly defined reason, let alone on somebody’s order.

So yes, he just walks around, always invisible to the busy society and yet almost happy with his life. But then, any kind of life must be better than what he had with Hydra, so he can’t be surprised.

He reaches Steve’s favorite park (it must be if he runs there every morning, right?) and sits on a bench. Not a random one, of course, it can’t be too close to Steve’s usual route because Steve might recognize him and Bucky’s sure he doesn’t want that to happen. He’s not sure why, though, he just knows he can’t talk to him right now. At the same time, the bench can’t be too far because Bucky wants to see Steve run past, he wants to know he’s all right.

He never sits in the same place, obviously. It’s good for Steve to keep a routine, but Bucky wants none of it for himself. It might be about Steve not learning about his presence, but it’s even more important if he wants to avoid Hydra. He’s sure there are still some remaining loyalists who would gladly put their hands on him and haul him back to the nearest base. So the less predictable he is, the better.

Of course he’s already risking a lot sticking so much around Captain America, but this is stronger than the rational part of his mind. He’ll go crazy and undoubtedly start making graver mistakes if he has no way of knowing that Steve’s safe and doing fine. This is the lesser of two evils.

And now, after all these years, watching Steve from the distance is the only thing he can do. It’s not about redemption, because he doubts anything can ever make up for what he’s done as the Winter Soldier. Truth is, that’s the only thing that makes sense to him. The only thing he can think of. It gives him a purpose.

Because there aren’t many things he cares about half as much as he cares about Steve.

And there he is, jogging at a sprint pace, not even a little sweaty. He looks healthy, there’s no effort in his moves, but Bucky has never seen him smile while running, so he supposes it’s just the way it is. When you run, you run, there’s no time for stupid things like plastering a smile on your face.

He follows Steve with his eyes for another five laps. The sixth comes as a surprise, the seventh is mildly worrying, but when Steve completes ten, he knows something must be wrong.

He follows Steve in person on his way home, sticking to the shadows and running on roofs wherever he can. A dirty homeless guy keeping up with Captain America like it’s no big deal would surely make it to the evening news, and then the area would be flooding with Hydra before the next sunrise.

Steve’s already showered and eating breakfast when Bucky reaches the roof of the building on the other side of the street. His view is limited, but the distress is clear. Steve keeps pacing the apartment with a toast in his hand, but he’s not really eating it.

Bucky’s stomach rumbles at the thought of a toast. He wishes it would shut up. Or maybe he wishes he could eat that toast if Steve isn’t.

Well, whatever. The real problem is he won’t learn the cause of Steve’s distress from here. The only thing he can do is wait. Maybe it’ll become clear if he has enough clues to put it all together. Maybe something’s about to happen and he’ll know once it does.

He could try to break into the apartment when Steve leaves, but there’s something wrong about the idea. Besides, the damn place must be super-secure.

An hour later Steve has a guest. Bucky knows the man, he’s seen him before. He almost killed him when he ripped one of the mechanical wings apart, but he can’t remember his name, although he’s sure he’s heard it at least once.

He looks around the area one last time, but there’s nothing out of the ordinary. People still pursuing their careers down below, whether on foot or in cars, no one suspicious. No Hydra, probably.

Time to dig some breakfast out of a dumpster.

***

He almost bumps into Steve and his friend.

It’s stupid and it’s his mistake. True, he didn’t expect them to leave the apartment just yet, but it doesn’t justify such a spectacular failure. He escapes through sheer luck, because some girl accidentally drops her grocery bag and there are tomatoes all over the pavement drawing Steve’s attention away from Bucky.

He has to be more careful from now on.

***

He spends the day away from Steve’s home, walking around the city. There’s a restaurant that gives out the day’s leftovers to the poor and he manages to get a styrofoam bowl of excellent vegetable soup. He doesn’t go there very often, because that would be routine and a risk of being remembered and eventually, inevitably, recognized. But he makes sure to visit at least once a week. A hot meal is a hot meal, after all, and this night threatens to be colder than the previous one.

He passes by Steve’s apartment again well past midnight, fully intending to spend at least a couple minutes nearby, but Steve’s up and looking out the window, so Bucky pretends he has somewhere to go and doesn’t dare look back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote the first section listening to ["The Rains of Castamere" by Taylor Davis](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WSJk7G4cWEU) on repeat. :)
> 
> Also, I promise there's quite some pain ahead. And maybe some fluff if those stupid supersoldiers behave.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, obviously I came up with and started writing this before the trailer came out, so the story will not be Civil War-compliant. Nevertheless, I hope you'll enjoy it and please be patient with me, there will (finally) be more pain soon enough!

Sam was right, back when they first met. The bed is too soft. The pillow is too comfortable. The blanket is too warm.

Everything’s been too good since he got the translation of that file. Natasha did it herself, because he was reluctant to trust a stranger, even a professional translator, with that kind of stuff. It must have taken days and she surely missed a few hours of sleep. But she did it and deep down he knows he’ll be forever grateful for her help.

He wanted to set a limit and read a few pages a day, because going through it all at once could prove too much. But once he started reading, he couldn’t force himself to stop. The first night after this he didn’t sleep at all. He lay in complete darkness, trying to block the pictures that were already engraved in his mind, cursing Hydra for what they did to Bucky, cursing his swollen eyes for refusing to shed any more tears, cursing SHIELD for being a lie, and most of all, cursing himself for never looking for Bucky’s body in the Alps.

The furious morning run did nothing to calm him down. Sam’s visit did help a little, but the effect wasn’t long-lasting.

And here he is, staring through the window at the empty street in the dead of the night. The rage has slowly faded, and now all that’s left is fear and worry that tie his stomach into a knot and pump adrenaline into his veins whenever he even starts to consider getting some rest.

Because who the fuck knows where Bucky is right now? If he’s okay, how he feels and what he remembers, if he’s not hurt or hungry or cold. If he’s not back in Hydra’s hands, tortured all over again.

He’s already asked himself those questions a million times and he’s nowhere near the end of the process. He’d give anything to know how Bucky’s doing. He’d give even more to have him back by his side, no matter the shape he’s in. He fucking owes it to him. It was his damn negligence that led to Bucky becoming Hydra’s murder pet in the first place. Now it’s his duty to make up for it as much as he can.

Of course, it’s more than just duty. Friendships are choices, not duties, and this is exactly what Bucky’s always been to him. The first choice, the absolute priority. How can he find him now?

Bucky can be anywhere in the entire world. If he doesn’t want to be found, Steve will never catch a glimpse of him, he’s sure of that.

Sam suggested they should give him some time and space and Steve knows he’s right, but everything would be a thousand times easier if he knew Bucky is safe. If it’s about him processing some of his memories or dealing with his identity, Steve can wait, he’ll wait as long as it takes and offer all he has if Bucky’s willing to accept any of his help.

But he has no way of knowing if Bucky’s even alive and it’s killing him. Maybe it’s his well-deserved torture. He wouldn’t mind it all that much if there was a chance it didn’t involve Bucky’s suffering too.

***

He briefly dozes off just before dawn and rises and hour later. He’s still worried sick and the usual run is a torture. He can’t focus; he knows his moves are pure muscle memory. He passes happy dog walkers and other runners, smiling at him when they recognize Captain America. He usually smiles back, but today it’s too hard to curl his lips upward, too hard to open his mouth and answer any hi or hello directed at him.

He tries altering his pace, just to think about something else than Bucky, but each time he ends up running at his regular speed, his mind wandering dark places, his body functioning on autopilot.

He completes ten laps again, hardly aware of the passing time and distance, but once back home, he’s both drained and hyper. He collapses on his bed without bothering with the shower (who cares, anyway?), but then he can’t bear lying down aimlessly and starts pacing the room. It doesn’t help.

He has to do something. He can’t just leave Bucky alone all over again. It dawns on him that Bucky can’t be dead, not because he wants it to be true, but because such news would have reached him. Either he’d be found by a civilian and the media would be going crazy, because a man with a metal arm must be a fucking sensation, or he’d be killed by Hydra and then someone would have slipped a letter under his door to break Captain America’s heart.

That leaves only two options: Bucky’s out there in the streets, evading Hydra and avoiding Steve, or he’s been captured again. Either way, he’s most likely alive, and if he is, then he can be found. That’s all that matters. If Steve has to walk every inch of the entire planet or tear down every brick of every Hydra base ever, then so be it. That’s something he can do.

Only he doesn’t know where to start.

***

Neither does Sam. He’s supportive as ever, he understands Steve’s need to act, he agrees that trying to reach out to Bucky may not be a bad idea after all if it’s done properly, without imposing too much pressure on him and just offering an option.

“So what does this boil down to? Waiting again?”

“Well, you can’t just distribute leaflets telling him to come to you and hope he’ll see one.”

“I know. I just wish we had some lead, some idea where to start.”

“I know, man. But without a sensible plan we can only do more harm than good. We don’t know who he exactly is or how he’s doing, and we can’t do anything without adjusting to him. The problem is, how do we learn what we need to do?”

Steve shrugs, hardly suppressing a sigh. “Hydra sounds like the most likely source of information.”

“So, a field trip?”

“I guess. I wanna see the stuff in that bank.”

“It won’t be a nice sight, you know.”

“I know. But maybe there’ll be something. Maybe I’ll find a way to understand him a little.”

“Whatever you say, Cap.”

***

The very sight of that accursed building sends shivers down his spine. Still, he doesn’t hesitate for the briefest moment. Bucky’s probably been there more often and experienced far worse things than a few dreadful thoughts.

He doesn’t know what exactly he expected to see in the vault. He knew more or less what the chair looks like, he knew there would be constraints and some regular medical and engineering equipment. But the actual sight of the devices makes him nauseous and he leans heavily on Sam for a few long minutes before he’s ready to face the remnants of the horror once again.

He’s grateful for Sam’s supportive silence. He’s not sure he would stand to talk about the machinery, much less to hear meaningless words of compassion.

When he’s finally back in control of his body, he looks around more closely. Generally, it’s exactly what he read about in the file, but there are all those little things that make him feel sick again and trap his voice in his throat, leaving him simply staring at the proofs of Bucky’s pain. The leather on the surface of the chair is cracked here and there, surely not from disuse. The constraints have visibly blunted edges and the mouth guard, which he found discarded on the floor, has a hole in it. Just like it’s been bitten through.

The machinery is now ruined, the screens smashed in pieces, the headset ripped open and probably missing some parts, screws and electronics scattered all over the floor. There’s also a cannula hanging over the back of the chair and further inspection reveals a roller clamp on it and an empty fluid bag hanging over the right armrest.

Although he knows IVs are the least painful and least dangerous things Hydra has done to Bucky, there’s something creepy about looking at the things they used to break his skin with and pump who knows what into his body. The metal arm is the metal arm, the awful chair is the worst, but technically it’s still external. And what freaks him out the most is the mental image of Bucky with all kinds of cannulas attached to him, technically i n him, ripping apart and opening his living flesh like it belongs to some fucked up heartless Hydra researchers.

“Found anything, Cap?” Sam’s voice brings him back to reality. He tears his eyes away from the medical equipment and looks at him.

“Too much, and yet nothing.”

“Well, I did. Look at this.”

Steve hurries over and glances at the little piece of paper in Sam’s hand.

“A picture?”

“Yeah. A damn selfie with the chair, and printed out. Don’t ask me why.”

“A damn selfie with the Winter Soldier. This looks like the metal arm reflecting the flash light from the camera.”

His mind is already racing, shouting how fucked up an idea this is, how sick one has to be to take such pictures and print them out, and then what? Boast about it? Show it to other technicians? Show it to Bucky? Keep it as some backup means to blackmail Steve?

And, most importantly, how come it was left behind? Did the tech just lose it? Or did he leave it here on purpose, knowing that someone would finally come and find it?

“What is this all about, Sam?”

“Don’t know. Might be an accident, might be a trap.”

“There’s one way to find out, huh?”

“You happen to know this guy?”

“No. But I’m pretty sure JARVIS can identify him.”

***

The day is surprisingly warm after the cold night. The gentle touch of the sun on his skin brings the smallest suggestion of a smile to his face. Such a little, trivial thing, and yet it feels so nice. People around him pay no attention to such things, he noticed they usually take them for granted and get really annoyed when deprived of them. Like, they never stop to appreciate the sun, but they keep grumbling and cursing when it rains.

And the simple truth is that it’s the other way round. Bucky’s learned to take the rain for granted and hardly ever minds the wind and the cold that usually accompany the rain. But when the rain is gone and the sun peeks through the clouds and shines on him like he deserves any of its light, he gladly closes his eyes and exposes his face, allowing himself a moment of peace.

It’s just a few seconds, because he wouldn’t dare stay off guard for longer than that, but it’s always a moment of sheer pleasure, superfast battery charging, and then he’s back to reality, walking on as if he never even considered stopping, much less bathing in the stupid sun like it can do anyone any good.

He reaches the bank and the good mood’s immediately gone.

Of course, the institution’s no longer there. The information on the contents of the vault was made public and although hardly anyone knows what those things were used for, they know Hydra stuff is not something they want to have anything to do with.

He understands them all too well.

The only thing he doesn’t quite understand is why Steve would actually want to go down there. It’s not like Hydra would have left top-secret data in an abandoned location, so what does he expect to find? Surely he doesn’t think Bucky would go there to torment himself or leave messages for people he could contact in person if he wanted to?

Bucky stands outside, actually wondering what the place looks like right now. He’s not curious enough to learn it, but he’d like to know if it’s intact or totally ruined, or maybe looted by the government or whatever’s left of SHIELD. He’ll ask Steve one day. That is, certainly not today.

He crosses the street, wobbling a little to appear drunk. People always look away from dirty drunkards, they won’t pay attention to him, they won’t even get a chance to find anything suspicious about him if he happens to give himself away in some way. If the smallest part of his metal arm slides out of his pocket, they’ll just think it’s some sharp object he might use for self-defense. If they happen to see his face, they won’t recognize neither James Barnes nor the Winter Soldier under his growing beard nor in his sunken eyes.

He’s a worthless piece of shit in their eyes. It suits his purpose.

Steve and his companion leave the building just as some well-dressed woman wrinkles her nose and looks at him in disgust. He makes sure to face away from them and keep walking, because he knows he can’t count on Steve treating him the way the woman did. He has no idea what Steve’s new friend is like in this matter, but that’s irrelevant. Everyone is a little better and a little more compassionate with Steve by their side, that much he knows.

They aren’t carrying any bags, so they didn’t decide to bring half the vault with them. Maybe there was nothing interesting enough down there. Or maybe there was nothing at all?

He tries to read their faces, but they’re too far to make out the details. They look pretty neutral from the distance, no huge smiles full of hope, no tears running down their faces, no rage turning them into bloodthirsty beasts. That last one’s good. He feared Hydra, though almost gone, could make Steve lose his mind and develop some revenge obsession. That wouldn’t end well and Bucky would have to stop it before Steve got himself killed.

He’d do it, of course, but he’s glad he doesn’t have to rush and go for things he’s not ready to do yet.

Steve and his friend go straight to the car parked nearby and drive off fast.

Shit. So they probably did find something.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry it took me so long to update!
> 
> But at least finally Tony makes an appearance and there's some humor. And JARVIS. Enjoy :)

“Woah!” Tony whistles at the photo, then slowly shakes his head. “This is not the most fucked up thing I’ve seen in my life but I must admit it ranks high.”

“So… Can you find him?” That’s the only thing Steve considers interesting right now.

“I’ll see what I can do.”

“Thanks.”

“Anything specific you want to know more than the rest about the guy?”

“Where to find him.”

“Yeah, I thought you’d start with the most difficult one.”

Steve forces a smile in response. He doesn’t really feel like talking to anyone, he doesn’t even listen when Tony shoots orders at JARVIS. Even with Stark’s technology the search will take some time, there’s only so much that can be done.

And it may all prove in vain if the guy is already dead. Some part of Steve would like him to be, because the very thought that one of the people who treated Bucky like a lab rat or even worse is still around makes him sick. But then there’s the darker part that wishes to meet him and make him pay for it.

Because of course Steve will never understand how anyone can treat another person like an object for experimentation, but having fun with this kind of stuff and acting like a tortured man is some kind of tourist attraction is so far beyond his understanding it makes him feel like his own skin is too tightly wrapped around his body. He can’t stand just sitting here and waiting for JARVIS to analyze terabytes upon terabytes of data.

Tony’s lab feels like a cage and he needs air and space, he needs to do something with all the emotions welling up in his chest before he explodes.

“Hey, Tony?”

“Yeah?”

“Do you mind if I use your gym or something?”

“Depends on which one you want to use, Cap.” The grin on Tony’s face is almost contagious and Steve is glad at least one of them is in mood for jokes. Of course it’s not enough to really cheer him up (actually there’s only one person who could do it right now, and his name is not Tony Stark) but he does feel a little better.

“Depends on which is best suited to withstand a supersoldier in need of a good workout.”

“Well, I might have a treat for you, Rogers. I ordered new equipment for my private gym and didn’t have the time to test-drive it yet. You can check if it’s not fitted with a bomb or covered with contact poison.”

“Thanks, Tony.”

“Have fun.”

***

He feels lonely.

It makes absolutely no sense because, really, what has changed during the last few hours? Nothing. The only reason for this shitty feeling is that he’s sitting at the rooftop overlooking Steve’s apartment and Steve’s not there at night.

Also, it’s cold, but it doesn’t really matter. Or it wouldn’t if he had the solace of the well-warmed, well-lit room on the other side of the street to keep him warm, maybe not so much in his actual body, but at least in his heart. It’s stupid, but the thought that Steve’s warm and cozy at home makes every one of his miseries more bearable and less important.

But though tonight’s colder than usual, he can’t force himself to look for some decent shelter. If Steve’s not home, it’s up to Bucky to make sure everything’s okay in there. That’s the least he can do. He can’t always follow Captain America, but he can watch his apartment and kick the asses of whoever might want to use Steve’s absence to their advantage. If they do, they’ll find the place is haunted. They’ll face the fucking ghost that Steve found some time ago and the thing kind of followed him home.

Because, to tell the truth, where else could he have gone? If he doesn’t stick to Steve, he’s left with absolutely nothing. He’s already had a lifetime of having nothing to truly hold onto, another one would be too much.

So even if he can’t work up enough courage to actually walk up to Steve and talk to him, there’s some kind of peace in knowing that he’s alive and safe. And it’s not like Bucky doesn’t want to ever do that, because damn, he’d really like to get in touch. He’d like to see Steve’s face light up when Bucky cracks a joke, he’d like hear him laugh at pathetic puns. He’d like to take him to Coney Island and make him ride the damn Cyclone until he throws up again.

But it all sounds like distant past or even more distant future, like it’s all locked behind a wall he cannot breach just yet. There are still too many questions spinning in his head, too many pieces that need to be glued together, too much guilt flowing through his veins.

He can’t crawl back to Steve like this.

Steve doesn’t deserve to put up with the fucked up shadow of his old friend. He earned a happy life he should live and Bucky knows he would be too much of a burden. And he’s content enough living in the shadows, watching silently.

One day he may be ready to return. One day, but not yet.

***

Steve never has to remember floor numbers for any place in the tower, because technically he can tell JARVIS to take him to the floor that houses whatever he needs and the elevator will know where that is.

But he does.

Tony’s private gym is high up there, on the last but one floor. The funny thing about the tower is that while all of the floors have numbers (duh), some were dubbed after their contents or after people who visited them, or events that took place on a given floor.

Of course it was Tony’s idea to make everyone say “nom nom nom floor” if they want to get to the one where official dinners were held, or “St Mungo’s” for the little hospital floor, or “All dogs go to heaven” to benefit from the panoramic viewpoint. Not to mention floors like “DUM-E, no!”, “4 am sadness”, “the president can kiss my ass”, “add more sugar” or the one where you can’t get if you don’t curse in Russian fluently enough.

Steve doesn’t even blink as he recites: “Tony Stark is genius and I love him more than I can say” and soon he enters one of Tony’s private floors.

The gym is impressive. Spacious, full of brand-new and shiny equipment of any kind he’s ever seen. Still, he goes for the good old punching bag that looks like it’s already waiting for him. Here’s also a set of clean bandages, so he aptly wraps his hands and sets to work.

God, he really needed this!

He starts without thinking, just lets his body operate on autopilot and throw punches at the bag as he falls into a rhythm. He’s able to think about what he’s doing after a while and his movements become more conscious. He no longer stands in one place and punches blindly, desperate to let off steam.

He starts literally dancing around, punching and kicking at different angles, aiming for different spots, jumping and spinning around. Once he’s done with that, he sets his mind loose and imagines the bag is the tech who took that stupid selfie. He gets more vicious, grace and creativity of a dancer are gone in a second, replaced by sheer fury, his punches ever faster and stronger until he sends the bag off the hook and flying to the other side of the room.

He fetches it back and goes on, never slowing down, hardly giving himself time to catch his breath every once in a while. Time gets simultaneously compressed and stretched out, but it doesn’t matter if he’s been here for five minutes or a week. He still wants more, needs more, so he takes it.

It’s 3 am when he decides he’s had enough. Naturally, he could go on like this for much longer, but he doesn’t feel like he might explode anymore, his mind is clearer and he’s kind of getting tired.

He goes to the common floor (thankfully this one doesn’t have a stupid name) and crashes on the couch, still in his workout gear, the bandages still on his hands, his body covered with sweat, his system all endorphins and adrenaline. He drifts off immediately.

He wakes up to find a blanket wrapped over him, a bottle of water next to the couch and a note that says: “Breakfast in the kitchen. Eat it and take a shower. JARVIS still searching” in Pepper’s neat handwriting.

He starts his day with the bottle of water, because somehow he didn’t realize how thirsty he was. It takes that bottle of water for him to realize he’s also hungry as hell, so he follows the instructions and heads to the kitchen. There’s a generous plate of toasts waiting for him and he wolfs them down in less than five minutes, trying not to wonder if Bucky even gets a chance to eat every day.

Because he doesn’t doubt he doesn’t have anyone to take care of him, to wrap him in a blanket, prepare him a breakfast, to remind him about personal hygiene. He tries not to think about the coldness of the day when he takes a warm shower and pulls on clean clothes.

He fails, because he wouldn’t be here in the first place if it wasn’t for Bucky.

The thought sets him into motion again. After all, Steve has never been the one to sit idly when something important needed to be done. He heads straight to Tony’s lab, but the place is empty.

“JARVIS, where’s Tony?” Why didn’t he think earlier to ask the simplest question is the world?

“Mr. Stark left the tower two hours ago.”

What?

“Where did he go?”

“A medical conference in Rome, I believe.”

What the fuck?

“Does this have to do with the Hydra tech I’m looking for?”

“Yes, sir. It seems his sister will be attending that conference and Mr. Stark intends to have a word with her.”

Steve’s heart is already racing, adrenaline pumped into his system like his life depends on it, exhilaration and panic fighting for control over his mind.

“And he didn’t tell me?”

“My apologies, Captain Rogers. You were asleep and Mr. Stark left in great hurry, as the conference ends today.”

“JARVIS, I have to go there.”

“Sorry, Captain Rogers, but Mr. Stark made it clear he didn’t want any company.”

“Shit.”

He goes to his own floor. He treats it more like a guest apartment, because as much as he likes Tony and his technology, he doesn’t think he could live here on a daily basis forever. It just doesn’t feel like home.

But then, his apartment in DC doesn’t feel exactly like home either. Sure, it’s much more of a home than anywhere else, but it’s still a far cry from what Steve thinks a home should be. He can’t even pinpoint the reason for this, but he awoke with this feeling years ago and it’s never faded away. Sure, he likes the 21st century and functions well enough, he loves the medical progress and all the technology, he enjoys movies and TV shows, he’s spent hours laughing at stupid videos on the Internet. But deep in his heart he knows the only home he ever had is gone forever, because there’s no turning back the time, and he’s not fully adjusted to living in this new world. Maybe he still can do that, but some things take a lot of time and he didn’t have any, he was just thrown in the 21st century with no warning and no preparation.

And then his world was flipped over for the second time, because it turned out Bucky was alive.

Steve realizes he’s been pacing for a few minutes now and the world starts to spin around. Tony is out there doing what should be Steve’s job, and Steve himself is doing absolutely nothing useful.

He heads back for the elevator.

“Main exit, JARVIS.”

“Captain Rogers, may I remind you Mr. Stark does not wish for you to join him at the conference?”

“I remember it quite well.”

“Then I would advise against your leaving the Tower, sir.”

“I just need to breathe some fresh air.”

“Then I would recommend going to the terrace floor or the winter garden.”

“Come on, I need to take a walk.”

“How about the gym, then?”

“Just let me out, JARVIS!”

“My apologies, Captain Rogers but you cannot leave the premises of the Tower unless I am absolutely sure you do not intend to act against Mr. Stark’s advice. So far you haven’t convinced me.”

“Oh, fuck this shit!”

“I cannot, sir, but at your request, I can place an order for any kind of shit you’d wish to fuck.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm extremely sorry it took me so long to update, but my computer crashed, so I'm posting this chapter from a temporarily borrowed one. But I promise we're slowly getting to the good stuff!

There are just as many people in the street as usual, but somehow, despite the crowd, the world feels empty. Or maybe it’s just that he feels lonelier than only a few days ago.

Because it’s late afternoon already and Steve still hasn’t come home. Maybe he won’t return today yet. Bucky will have to spend another night on the rooftop, keeping watch over his apartment.

It’s all actually quite weird, because how can he feel lonely about this if he’s been the one avoiding contact so far? It should be easier if Steve’s nowhere near around, they won’t accidentally bump into each other in an unfortunate moment. He should be fucking comfortable and free to roam the city as he pleases, but he feels like a damn stranger in the places he knows.

He follows Steve’s usual jogging route, stopping every now and then and looking around or pretending to search the contents of some dumpsters or doubling back, because he may feel empty, but he’s not stupid, he doesn’t want to look like he’s running in a given direction. He knows how to blend in and remain invisible to passers-by.

By now, unfortunately, some may recognize him. Maybe not as James Barnes or the Winter Soldier, but as that same homeless guy who appeared in the neighborhood several weeks ago and remains here. He never asks people for money or food or cigarette, so he’s not in that much of danger, people usually remember hobos just to avoid them.

But then, he can recognize some of the park regulars, mostly dog walkers and mothers with their children, but there are also a few who cross the park on their way to work or school. They pretend not to see him each and every day and in return he tries to walk the least crowded alleys.

Today everything’s fine as always. There’s the teenager who plays fetch with his fox terrier. The young mother with her baby in a stroller always talks on the phone. The elderly man feeds pigeons with stale bread and somehow the birds always crowd around him and eat it. There’s also the couple who always walk hand in hand, the girl carrying a white cane and the boy ceaselessly describing the world to her. And finally, those two girls that keep stealing glances at each other as they walk parallel alleys, afraid to be noticed and yet unaware of how obvious they are.

They’re all harmless.

And then, there are the people Bucky takes extra care to avoid: the two other homeless men who visit the park every now and then. They’re more dangerous, because they actually pay attention to him. As in, specifically him as a person, not the way you pay attention to a stranger just because you don’t know them and don’t trust them, but forget the second they get out of sight. He’s not sure of the men’s attitude, but he keeps his distance just in case. Besides, the problem works both ways, it’s not only about him trying to stay anonymous and thus safer. If they know him, they’re in just as much trouble, because if Hydra comes after him, everyone who so much as passed him in the street will be questioned. And Hydra questionings usually involve pain.

Bucky doesn’t want any more people to suffer because of him, so he carefully stays away from everyone.

***

Even he is really surprised to have bluffed his way inside. He didn’t have to claim to have a fucking MD degree, he didn’t have to hack into the registration system to “prove” he had signed up for the conference, he didn’t have to tell a single lie and they still let him in.

Amazing.

He’s also lucky. Everyone’s taking a break before the last lecture scheduled for today. There’s a fuck ton of people talking to one another, speaking mostly English, but he can hear several other languages and spot interpreters as well.

He pays them no mind, just scans the crowd for one specific face.

Anna Ridge, MD, heart surgeon. Not a world-class doctor, but she had reasonably good ratings on the Internet. He’s not sure if she knows what her brother’s been up to, but then, there’s one way to find out.

She’s talking to a Chinese expert on transplantation (good job with the research, JARVIS!) when Tony finally spots her, so he stops nearby and pretends he’s talking on the phone. They seem to be discussing some cooperative research and Tony has a bad feeling about this, but he doesn’t interrupt.

Then someone recognizes him. Well, it took them some time; they’re not the brightest lot in the universe, these doctors, are they? Tony sighs and wishes Bruce were here with him.

“Mr. Stark?” The man is much younger than Tony and his smile is too wide, artificial. Tony doesn’t smile in return.

“In the flesh.”

“My name’s David Wynch. It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Stark.”

“I can imagine, Mr. Wynch.”

Wynch frowns, but only briefly.

“Is it business that brings you here to Rome?”

“What else?” Technically, answering questions with questions is thought to be rude, but Tony couldn’t care less. At least not while talking to this skinny nerd.

“That’s perfect, Mr. Stark! Have you ever considered contributing to medical science?”

“I might if you excuse me for a while, Mr. Wynch.”

He’s already moving because Ridge has finished her conversation and is walking down the hall. She’s quite fast in her ridiculously high-heeled shoes, though still a far cry from what Pepper can do. Anyway, he’s obviously faster. He catches up with her before she takes a turn.

“Excuse me, Ms. Anna Ridge?”

“Yes, and you are…?” Tony doesn’t like the way she raises her eyebrows, pretending not to recognize him. Bitch.

“Tony Stark, Stark Industries.”

“Of course!” She pretends to have realized only now and Tony hates her for playing that stupid game. “What brings you here, Mr. Stark?”

“Hard work, as always.” He grins at her. Let the show go on before we get down to business! “I have heard your brother’s been doing some research that I am vividly interested in contributing to, but I cannot reach him in any way. Is there… Ms. Ridge?” He stops, because her expression is confusing.

“Mr. Stark, my brother is dead. You won’t contribute to his research in any way.”

“My condolences, ma’am. I didn’t know.”

“Few people did.”

“How come? Such a brilliant idea, and yet nobody paid any mind to his work?” Somehow Tony manages to keep a straight face. Naturally he has no idea what he’s talking about or if he’s talking about anything at all. Her brother may or may not have done any official research, JARVIS didn’t provide that kind of detail. But so far so good.

“Mr. Stark, can I talk to you later? I have a lecture to deliver, and I–”

“Absolutely. I’ll find you after the lecture.”

They part and Tony briefly considers actually skipping the presentation but in the end he ends up sitting in the last row, carefully watching the lecturer, assessing, looking for anything that might be important.

There’s nothing. She doesn’t seem nervous, her voice is even, her stance professional and confident. Tony isn’t really listening to what she says because he really doesn’t care about the revolutionary cardio surgeries she’s discussing. He already has three escape routes mapped out, one of them not preferable due to its proximity to David Wynch.

And even thinking about the guy proves to be a mistake. Bad luck, bad luck, Tony mentally slaps himself and puts on a fake smile when Wynch approaches him and sits on the unoccupied chair right next to Tony.

Fuck.

“Not very interested in the lecture, huh, Mr. Stark?” he whispers by way of greeting. “Don’t worry, me neither.” He smiles and Tony flexes his hand, throttling the urge to show him the finger. Suddenly cardio surgeries seem much more interesting, but Wynch is already in his fanboy-and-businessman mode.

“I am, actually.”

“I’m sure my offer will be much more interesting to you. I know you are the leading expert in technology, but Mr. Stark, have you ever wondered how to stop the heart from, well, stopping?”

“I have, actually.”

“Perfect! So can I assume you are up-to-date with current research in pacemaker technology?”

“Naturally,” he answers, secretly sliding a hand into his pocket.

“Great! I don’t doubt then you’ll be interested in what one of our engineers came up with, a revolutionary idea that only needs some polishing up…”

He’s still speaking when Tony’s phone starts ringing. “I’m sorry, but this is a very important call. Mr. Wynch, please contact SI for anything more.” With that, he leaves the room and silences his phone.

*

They sit in some ridiculously expensive restaurant sipping wine. Naturally, Tony can afford it and won’t even notice the expenses but that doesn’t change the fact that everything is extremely overpriced.

“So, Mr. Stark. You said you wanted to contribute to Edward’s work.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“May I ask what exactly is your scope of interest? I could maybe direct you to someone else.”

“Actually I was hoping to discuss the details with him alone,” he says, sure as ever, desperately hoping she’ll buy it.

She nods. “That would make sense. I knew he worked for SHIELD.”

“He did,” Tony confirms, playing along to what he’s given.

“And it finished him.” She grows grimmer. “After the media finally stopped talking about what happened in DC, I got a letter. Said Hydra had got to him before they were taken down.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

“I don’t know the details of his SHIELD projects, but I knew he was someone important in their research. He was a good man, Mr. Stark.”

“I do not doubt that, Ms. Ridge.” The words are bitter on his tongue and he thinks he might need to wash them away with the bitterest alcohol he can find. But work first, play later.

“Mr. Stark, you said you had worked with him previously?”

“Yes. We weren’t exactly friends, but we developed something together. I’m sorry I can’t give you details, I know you would have loved to know more.”

“Classified. I understand. I only wonder how come you didn’t know about his death if you worked for SHIELD.”

Finally! She’s starting to make sense, getting suspicious. It was going too easy, so easy he could swear it was all bullshit, but it finally dawns on her he might be the fraud.

“I did, though technically I was never a part of the organization. And, as you said yourself, some information is classified, even now. My clearance wouldn’t be enough to get me half the way to that kind of data. Maybe they would have updated me on his status if our project hadn’t been discontinued.”

“I see.” She empties her glass and lets him fill it again. “May I only ask if this project involved something potentially dangerous?”

“I’m afraid my notion of what’s potentially dangerous may be a little different from yours, so if you could be a little more specific…?”

She shrugs. “I don’t even know, I thought maybe some kind of radiation since they never let me even visit his grave.”

“Wait, they don’t–”

“No. All I got is a pile of documents and a picture of his grave for proof. I don’t even know where he’s buried.”

A picture? Nice. Pictures are taken in places. Places may have characteristic features. Characteristic features may be identified. Tony quickly constrains the smile almost creeping onto his face.

“I’m sorry.”

She shrugs it off and Tony notices her eyes are a little glassy, though he’s unsure if from emotion or alcohol. He keeps the conversation going, asking unimportant questions about her own research and never really paying attention to her replies, his mind already far away from the restaurant.

He’s glad to lead her safely to the taxi and walk to a back alley to suit up for the journey home.

“JARVIS?” he asks, letting a smile onto his face. “Do you think she has any valuable information stored on her phone?”

“I guess we’re about to find out, sir.”

***

Steve forgets the punching bag and runs across the gym to get to his buzzing phone as quickly as he can.

“Tony?”

“Bad news, Cap. Your selfie friend’s most likely already dead.”

“What? Tony, where the hell are you?”

“Somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean, on my way home. Found his sister, she confirmed his death, but that’s only her word, so I’ll have to do some more digging.”

Steve pinches the bridge of his nose, trying to process the newly acquired information.

“Why didn’t you tell me you found something? I should have gone with you.”

“You looked like a little puppy under that blanket and I didn’t want to wake you.”

“I’m not joking.”

“Neither am I, though that wasn’t the primary reason. Thing is, your presence on a med conference would raise suspicion.”

“Yeah, and yours surely didn’t.”

“Actually not, I almost signed a contract with a pacemaker manufacturer.”

“Tony–”

“No need to thank me, I’m always glad to help.”

And that’s it. Tony hangs up. He’ll explain everything once he’s back.

Steve unwraps the bandages from his hands and drops them carelessly. He grabs a bottle of water on his way to the elevator.

***

It’s way past midnight when Tony enters the Tower. He doesn’t bother to check if Steve prepared a welcome party and heads straight to his lab.

“JARVIS, find out where our friend is supposedly buried, asap, buddy.”

“I’ve already found the location, sir.”

“Oh? I don’t recall asking you to do it.”

“You didn’t, sir. Captain Rogers wanted to know as soon as you told him the man is dead. The coordinates identified by the picture from Ms. Ridge’s phone match with an abandoned Hydra base in Kansas.”

“Shit, I should’ve known.”

“Also, I believe Captain Rogers is already on his way to the location.”

“What? You let him go there? Please, don’t tell me he went alone, at least?”

“My apologies, sir, but you only asked that he doesn’t attend the conference, my orders didn’t include a middle of nowhere in Kansas. And yes, he seems to have gone alone, save for the quinjet pilot, although I cannot be sure about Mr. Wilson.”

“Track Cap if you can, and I really need to catch up on some sleep. Wake me for anything important.”

“Sir, Captain Rogers requested that you don’t follow him to Kansas.”

“Request denied. Screw him!”


	5. Chapter 5

The place is deserted, the remains of the building in rather poor condition after what must have been an explosion of some sort. He’s careful when he enters, but doesn’t hesitate for a second.

The door is closed, but turns out not exactly locked, and Steve find himself in a long, gloomy corridor. The walls were once painted white, the floor must have been smooth and uncracked, the lamps on the ceiling raining creepy white light.

He visits every room as he proceeds deeper into the building, but so far there’s been nothing worth his while. Just endless rooms with remnants of various provisions, from food to ammo to clothes, one room with a desk and several chairs, a toilet and a canteen with an adjacent kitchen.

He finds an unsteady staircase and climbs it, mostly because the way down has collapsed. The upper floor is more interesting; the first thing he finds is a huge gym. Surprisingly, some equipment looks like it might be still functioning. Other than that, the floor is mainly bedrooms. He peeks into three, then gives up and decides to search for a way underground. That’s where the really important stuff will be, but then, the building isn’t in the best of states.

He doubles back and roams the ground level again. It takes several turns and a frustrated noise escaping his mouth until he chances upon a relatively clear way downstairs.

He steps into the corridor when his torch goes out. He hits it a few times, but once it turns out it’s no good, he reaches to his pocket and slowly replaces the batteries. Stark technology or not, everything needs power and recharging batteries.

Then, he can take a proper look around.

And really, there is a huge difference between the upper levels and the underground corridor. It looks like it’s never been painted, ripped wiring and plumbing hanging from the ceiling, debris covering the floor.

He pushes the door to the nearest room and it falls off the hinges with a dumb thud and the sound of shattering glass. He examines the room, expecting to see some kind of lab, but no, there’s just a table and chairs. And broken glasses. And what looks like an empty bottle of vodka.

Further on, the fun begins. There are rows of cells with heavy metal doors and only small crates that enable some light and food slots, there’s a weird room entirely covered with tiles and fitted with a shower. Further still there’s what looks like a ruined operating theater, a crushed gurney lying on its side in the far-off corner of the room, cabinets full of little bottles and cannulas and whatever else there is – Steve isn’t very eager to find out the details. He backs off before he starts imagining medical experiments being carried out on people without their consent or even without their knowledge.

But his mind is already spiraling down, because non-consensual medical procedures scream Bucky so loud he leans against the wall and shuts his eyes, trying to concentrate on breathing, just fucking breathing before the dizziness pushes him out of his body.

It takes a while to blink away the dark spots at the corners of his vision but when he’s finally fully back, he’s more determined than ever.

He doesn’t really know why he came here or what he really expected to find, because it’s plain as hell there’s no Hydra cemetery here. Maybe the picture was photoshopped, because the place matches the image, of that he is certain. But it’s also empty and ruined and hasn’t been occupies for so long he doubts it can actually lead him to Bucky. He just had to do _something_ , anything that’s not sitting in the Tower and waiting for Tony to come back with some kind of an idea. He had to check.

He walks further down the corridor thinking nothing can surprise him since he read that damn file, but then he stops in front of another heavy door. It’s locked, but only for a moment longer, the shield is a very good lockpick… lockbuster… whatever. He enters the room and stops abruptly mere inches from a fucking _well._ Or a pit?

He walks around, trips on something uneven. There’s a noise coming from the dark abyss, like metal scraping rock.

The light from his torch reveals a ladder and he climbs down, stopping every few meters to look around and double-check that the way is clear and he can continue his descend. The bottom is good fifty meters below, but once his feet touch the ground, the ladder retracts back into the wall.

What the ever-loving fuck?

The bottom of the pit is empty, just a round room, big enough for a man his size to lie down, but that’s it. He expected something more spectacular. He takes a tour around the place, touching, pressing, kicking, looking for a switch. Because there has to be a switch, right? A secret door, the floor giving way, the ladder coming back, anything.

He double- and triple-checks, his frustration growing. There’s nothing.

He’s trapped.

*

He sits alone in complete darkness, not bothering to switch on the light because that would be a waste. There’s nothing to look at in here, after all.

He already knows he can’t get out on his own. There’s no way to activate the ladder, not that he can find. He tried to climb the walls but he got only as high as a few meters until there was really no support for his hands and legs, just like someone once tried to create those tiny points of anchor for their own purpose but didn’t get enough time to carve any more little holes.

His comm is out, he supposes he’s too far below ground level or maybe something’s just blocking the signal.

He gives himself more time to think. What’s the purpose of such a thing? Total darkness, no way out. There were regular cells up there, so this must be some special case. Special case in Hydra prisoners usually means Bucky. Only this one doesn’t make sense as a holding cell, because there’s nothing here below, no restraints, no toilet, no lift for food. No sign of any kind of medical equipment, and this ladder?

It’s definitely not something that was used often, because it’s just not practical. No one would go down here to feed him or clean him or anything, so what? Solitary confinement? Possible, but if he was meant to spend long periods of time in here, he would need some food and water, and there would be a way to supply them or at least to monitor him. They wouldn’t leave their precious asset down here truly alone, would they?

He briefly considers resuming his search for _something_ but the whirring sound from the wall sends him to his feet. It takes a second to recognize the sound of the ladder ejected once again. He throws himself on the ladder without hesitation and climbs up as fast as he can, looking upward and trying to make out the rim of the well. He thinks he can see it but a horizontal door covers it like a lid before he can reach it.

He slams his fist against it in frustration, then the shield. The awful metallic cling echoes all around like laughter. Then the ladder retracts into the wall again and he’s falling down, barely remembering to land.

The ladder disappears and the door slides open once again.

And for a moment he’s torn between swearing and banging his head against the wall, and lying down and crying, because the message this place sends to the prisoner is definitely something Bucky was taught over and over again: you are alone. There is no way out. You can’t leave on your own. You can try but it will be in vain. You will leave when we say so.

Fucking bastards!

He sits down and waits for the ladder to reappear. He knows it will, because this kind of lesson is bound to be a drill, a recurring theme that eventually turns into some kind of psychosis. So he has to keep his cool.

He estimates it takes the scenario about an hour to repeat. The walls whirr and he jumps onto the ladder, making it halfway up. He stops, looks up, listens to the way the door slides. Waits. Better be late than lose the shield. Now.

He tosses the shield, missing the perfect moment by a heartbeat, because it rebounds off the door and falls to the ground. He jumps after it and waits another hour, then tries again.

And again. And again. And yet again until he finally chooses the exact right moment and angle and the shield locks between the door and the rim of the well. He climbs the ladder until the whirring comes back and it begins to slide back into the wall, then jumps. He hooks his fingers around the edge of the well and stills, making sure the grip is firm and he’s not sliding down, making sure he moves cautiously and doesn’t so much as touch the should while working his way up, yet paying attention. He doesn’t want to get crashed by the door. He doesn’t want to lose his shield if it retreats either.

He makes it, hauls himself up onto the floor and grabs his shield. The door shuts for a brief moment, then slowly opens again.

Steve leaves the room, shuddering, thinking how easily he got out and how many hours – days – weeks? – Bucky had to spend down there, without a chance to block the door and escape, and even if he found a way to do that, there would be Hydra agents waiting to teach him another painful lesson.

He clenches his fists and grits his teeth. He has to find him, and if there’s anything even remotely useful in this base, he’s going to find it too, even if it means peeling the remnants if paint off the walls or taking apart every cabinet in the old lab, or digging the ground around the building.

His comm suddenly comes alive.

“Hey, Cap, having fun yet?”

“Stark, what are you doing here?”

“Whatever you failed to do, amigo. Where are you now?”

“Underground. The second stairwell on the left is clear enough to pass.”

“I’m fine. Got anything interesting down there?”

“Interesting, kind of. Useful in our case, not yet.”

“Then come topside and see something.”

Steve runs.

*

“Tony? What have you found?”

“Yeah, nice to see you too, buddy.”

Steve rolls his eyes. “Show me what you’ve got.”

“Here.” Tony taps on his phone. “While you rushed here without second thought, I did some digging before my journey to Kansas and got my hands on this very interesting satellite image–”

“Wait, this is here? I thought this area was censored.”

Tony sighs. “Sweet summer child, Cap. Yes, it is censored for an average Google Maps viewer but I am Tony fucking Stark. I don’t do censored.”

“Okay, so what am I looking at?”

“A graveyard. Right here, your three.”

“It’s an empty field.”

“Exactly.”

Steve closes his eyes, runs a hand all over his face.

“How does this make sense? Who would bury people next to a secret facility and then, what, remove the graves?”

“Or just the stones. Maybe there never were any real graves, only the stones.”

“So they could snap pictures and send to people?”

“You’re asking like you expect me to know.”

“And you don’t?”

“I decided to let you do something too. You know, people say I’m too selfish, so I’m working on that.”

Steve snorts in response. Tony bites his lip and looks around like he can find something new, something he hasn’t spotted yet.

“Maybe it’s all a lie,” Steve swallows hard. “The picture you pulled from her phone might have been photoshopped.”

“Catching up on computer graphics, huh? You should! But seriously, no, JARVIS scanned the color schemes and analyzed lighting, and it really looks like everything’s fine with it.”

“Maybe there’s a very similar place somewhere else?”

“Not very likely. So. Walk with me?”

Steve follows Tony and they walk around the field, watching the ground, searching for any anomalies. Maybe a piece of polished granite. Maybe some grass irregularities. Maybe something else.

“Does this look suspicious to you, Cap?”

“Not in the least.”

“That’s a shame. It does look suspicious to me.”

“It’s just grass, Tony.”

“Hey, but this?”

“This… You think?”

“Yeah. Do you have a spade, Cap?”

“We aren’t–”

“Sorry,” Tony pats him on the shoulder as he walks past. “It’s not like JARVIS can scan this field.”

*

It wasn’t a grave. Thank God, it wasn’t a grave. It did look like it might have been, once, but when they dug it up, it was empty.

Steve sits back on his heels, his mind racing. Why. Why would anyone set up a fake cemetery. Where is the bastard who took that selfie. Where is Bucky. Where is Bucky. Where is Bucky!?

Frankly speaking, Steve doesn’t give a shit about this base, that technician. Sure, he’s furious and he’d rip to shreds anyone who ever so much as touched Bucky or just knew and never objected, but it wouldn’t change anything. He can’t turn back the time, he can’t undo any of Hydra’s tortures. He could give up on his rage if he knew Bucky was safe. Not necessarily with him. Of course, he’d love to have his friend back, but if Bucky’s just fine and doesn’t need him, well, it would be enough to just know he gets by all right. It would be enough to know he has some other friends who make him laugh and help him when he needs it, to know that he has a warm place to sleep and eats well, and that he’s not in pain.

But he has no way to know any of these. So he gets up and looks at Tony, hoping that he has some kind of plan, idea, whatever. Tony seems to read his mind.

“So what’s the next step?” he asks, a shit-eating grin adorning his face. “Where do we go next?”

“If there’s nothing more for us to see in here, then the quinjet, I believe?”

“New York?” asks Tony.

“New York,” Steve confirms, barely suppressing a loud sigh. He really hoped he’d find something more than a dead end here.


	6. Chapter 6

The perimeter he roams expands every day. Some time ago he would be reluctant to venture too far away from Steve’s home, just in case. But now, with Steve not there, he can wander around DC wherever he wants.

He does this mostly to keep his mind occupied with something else than playing out dark scenarios of Steve never returning home, and it works. He walks around, paying attention to where he is, drawing a map in his head so he never gets lost.

He has two reference points that set the very foundation for his map. The obvious one is north, because are there really people who cannot navigate by cardinal directions at all? He can’t imagine being absolutely unaware of such an important thing. Sure, it’s possible to get confused in a building with lots of interior corridors and few right angles and no windows, it’s easy to lose track of directions underground, it’s possible to get lost in an unknown area with no obvious reference points to remember, but to be completely oblivious to any form of navigation that doesn’t depend solely on functioning technology? No, he wouldn’t be able to do that. His mind may not be the most trustworthy thing in the world, but at least it shouldn’t be in danger of getting stolen or shutting down for no apparent reason.

Well, not anymore, at least.

And then there’s the other reference point he consigned to his memory and always, always knows the fastest way to. Steve’s apartment. Duh. It’s the fucking reason he’s in this city in the first place, so of course he’s aware of which direction and which exact route he should follow to get there as soon as possible.

He’s glad to introduce some more chaos into the way he moves around the city. If anyone’s watching him, they’ll find it harder to track him down, because now he hardly ever visits the same place twice. That is, apart from keeping watch over the apartment, but he only goes there once in three days, because staying for too long is dangerous. There’s a weird kind of melancholy that settles into his brain every night he spends perched on the rooftop opposite the only important building, and as much as he treats these watches as some kind of duty he owes Steve, he wouldn’t want to be caught off-guard while sitting close to an empty apartment. He’s a little emotional when it comes to Steve, but there are limits to everything. Steve’s furniture or TV set are not worth Bucky’s falling into Hydra’s captivity again. Steve himself would be, damn, he’d be worth a thousand falls from the train and a thousand painful lives of the Winter Soldier, torn into pieces each and every time anew, his memories scraped from his brain, his body subject to a gazillion new surgeries and injections.

But Bucky now knows that Steve is in New York, safe with his friends. Steve seems to trust them, so this alone should be enough to believe in their abilities, but Bucky’s done his own research (mainly in the depths of his mind, but that still counts as something, doesn’t it?).

He knows two of them and if both are really on Steve’s side, everything is okay. He remembers Howard Stark, and Tony is his son, equally genius and with the possibilities the 21st century offers him, he’s reaching further and further in technology development. Bucky has seen articles in abandoned newspapers littering the streets, he’s seen fancy Stark technology used by regular passers-by, and once he stopped in front of the shop to watch some TV through the window, and holy shit, for some reason there was footage of the battle of New York against the alien monsters, and there he was, barely escaping alive from the Universe’s asshole.

Also, it looks like Natalia is a friend of Steve’s now. She must be, because she fought the Winter Soldier to the point of getting injured. He still doesn’t know why she aimed for his goggles back then, but he’s certain it was her intention, because of all the people in the world he knows she’s good enough not to miss such a clean shot. It wasn’t for Steve’s sake, because it wasn’t until later that Steve poured yet another bottle of chaos into the cauldron called Bucky’s mind and fed the fire under it. But it doesn’t matter. Maybe one day he’ll find out. For now, all that matters is that if Natalia’s an ally, Steve is way safer than if she were not.

It’s actually interesting, even funny to the point where he should burst into bitter laughter, how his past, his two different pasts in fact, got tangled and met together without his aid, and he wasn’t even there to witness it.

It’s rather fucked up how he’s always too far from events that have to do with him. How he’s never the one to make those decisions, because the world, be it sheer coincidence or just a messed-up Hydra secretary, is always the one to choose for him.

Well, shit happens.

And it does indeed, because Bucky is too lost in thought to notice the man who follows him until another one appears right in front and punches him in the face. He ducks on pure instinct, his metal arm already moving toward the attacker’s jaw, but connecting with his chest as Bucky’s feet are kicked from under him and he falls.

He rolls sideways and catches the other guy’s leg before he manages to kick again, flinging him into the nearest wall. By the time Bucky’s up on his feet again, the first man is already charging, a knife in his hand.

Bucky catches that hand in his metal one and squeezes until blood drips from between his fingers and bones crush, and the man’s scream has already brought too much attention. He lets go and bolts, and runs for his life, weaving through the crowd and taking the first turn left.

That street is emptier, which is both good, because he can run faster without knocking into people, and worse, because he’s too visible. He keeps running, taking as many turns as he can, but making sure he’s really running away from that unfortunate spot.

Away from DC.

He has no idea if those people were some pathetic low-ranked Hydra operatives or just accidental jerks who decided to punch the shit out of a homeless guy for sport, but either way there’s a chance Hydra will find out and hunt him down. The only way to be a step ahead of them is to keep moving in an unpredictable manner, so he runs through back alleys and parks, and people’s backyards and then vaster, emptier fields.

Thanks to his friend adrenaline, he keeps running until dusk, staying off roads as much as he can. He’s exhausted when he finally stops and decides to rest, but at least he’s far from the city. The forest around him is quiet in a way a city never is, and it’s nice and disturbing at the same time.

He’s hungry and thirsty, although he managed to get a few sips of water on his way here, but then, there isn’t much he can do about it right now. He sits on the ground, his back against a tree trunk, and waits for his pulse to even out.

Being a supersoldier is useful when you have to run fast, but later comes the time to pay for it and he knows he should be having a five-thousand-calorie meal right now, and possibly three liters of water to wash it down.

Well, fuck, because he has absolutely no food. Water is easier, there are rivers, there are rains, there are possibly places to steal it from with no one ever knowing he was there. Food is also easy to get in the city, because there are loads of leftovers and expired but perfectly eatable products everywhere, and there are also the blessings of restaurants that feed the hungry for free. Hell, there are also plenty of places to steal food from.

The forest is more of a bitch. Sure, he could try to hunt something or chew on some leaves, maybe get some mushrooms (bless East-European missions for teaching him about the variety of mushrooms! Perhaps they’re to be found in the US too? He honestly has no idea.) However, the problem is he’d have to cook any of this and starting a fire may give his presence away, not to mention it’ll be hard without so much as a flint.

He dozes off like that, propped up against the tree, one moment lost in thought and too tired to open his eyes a minute later.

He wakes before dawn, trembling in the cold dew and hungrier than in the evening. Well, that isn’t exactly surprising.

He doubles back to the village he passed in his haste and, hating himself for it, sneaks into somebody’s empty kitchen. The owner of the house, whoever they are, remains blissfully unaware of the fact that a seasoned murderer is rummaging through their stuff and stealing food. After all, he knows how to move silently and leave no evidence of his presence.

He doesn’t take much, just enough to keep him going for a few hours: a loaf of bread, some cheese and ham, a tomato, a bottle of water. He briefly considers stealing some chocolate bars too, because they’re his precious calories, but finally decides not to overdo. He’ll stick to the minimum.

He returns to the safety of the forest unnoticed and eats his breakfast in silence. Not so much the silence as in lack of his voice, because he doesn’t talk to himself aloud. It’s the silence of the surroundings that’s still so strange to his ears. A city is never truly silent, but forests are the exact opposite – they’re never truly loud.

He likes the forest better, because it also quiets his mind. Back in DC, it would tune in to the constant buzz of the traffic, but there’s nothing like that here and he finds it easier to stay in the moment, without having to fight for focus. Here he can listen to his own breath and the steady beat of his heart, and his pulse doesn’t pick up for no reason, the air isn’t trapped in his lungs, the corners of his vision don’t go dark.

It’s calm when he munches on the first bite of the bread and it’s calm when he gulps down the last sip of the water. He’ll live for now.

He’ll live for now, and that’s the most important thing.

***

Steve sends another sandbag flying across the gym. The thing is ridiculously stubborn and refuses to burst even as he throws the strongest punches he can. He sighs and fetches it back, then hits it with another punchstorm.

He’s almost done for the day when the room fills with JARVIS’s voice.

“Captain Rogers, your presence is required in the lab.”

He freezes. “Emergency?” he asks, already on his way to the elevator.

“No, Captain, but you will want to hurry.”

“All right, take me there.” He enters the elevator, sweaty from the workout, hands still wrapped and all, but absolutely unbothered by any of this. The elevator seems painfully slow, so unmatched with his heartbeat and his mind, because _get there fast_ and _no, not emergency_ are a perfect combination of ideas that kindle his hope and make his heart leap all the way to his throat.

“Hey there, gymboy,” Tony greets him without looking. He waves his hand in the air and a screen appears on the empty wall in front of them.

“What is it?”

“I thought you might want to see the video that’s trending on YouTube as we speak.”

Steve looks at the screen as the video starts playing and he finds himself unconsciously approaching the screen while a homeless guy knocks out two aggressors with no visible effort and takes off faster than any human being should be able to.

“Oh my God.”

“Yep.”

“It’s him!”

“It is.”

“Tony, where, when–?”

“Fresh stuff, yesterday in DC.”

Steve’s heart stops for a long moment, then starts pounding even faster. “DC? Shit, I’m pretty sure I fucked up, Tony.”

“Hey, calm down, big guy, you didn’t.”

“The hell I didn’t. I should’ve been there, just in case. If he maybe–”

“You were, for quite long actually. Sit down and unwrap those hands, Jesus, how did I even let you into my lab like this?” Steve sits on the nearest chair and starts picking at the bandage. “Now listen, because I think that’s good news that he was in DC, possibly – probably – okay, I’m actually almost certain he was stalking you – and he didn’t kill you. That’s good news. And give him some credit, Cap, it looks like he can take care of himself quite well.”

“Yeah, maybe he needs more time. I just– I wish I could do something for him, you know?”

“You are. You’re waiting and giving him a chance. You believe in him. I say it counts as something.”

“Doesn’t matter anymore. Whatever’s left of Hydra, they’ll now know where to look for him.”

“But they’re not the only ones. JARVIS is analyzing all city cameras, face recognition and stuff, as we speak. Will take some time, but we may get an idea of where he’s going.”

“They’ll do the same.”

“I know. But he’s made it this far, he’ll be fine. We’ll come up with some plan once we get a map of his movement. If he’s still in the city, we can either go get him or guard his six until he either attempts some contact or turns into a murder robot , in which case we probably can incapacitate him without taking him out.”

There’s a weird kind of warmth settling in Steve’s chest and he’s surprised to realize he’s actually smiling at Tony.

“Thank you. For– for understanding.”

“I’ve read the file too, Steve. I’m not saying he’s not dangerous, because he is, and we should still be careful about everything, he’s not your old pal from the forties and we can’t just take him in at face value, but I really wouldn’t sleep well knowing that Hydra got their super assassin back.” He grins.

Steve snorts. “You ever sleep at all? I thought you run on caffeine alone.”

“Oh, no, I also need some alcohol and a decent amount of admiration.”

Steve grins back, grateful for the light mood and somehow happy. Worried, but happy. Because Bucky is alive and it looks like he’s been eating and sleeping enough to maintain his strength and keep himself relatively safe.

He mumbles something about showering and changing the sweaty clothes and leaves the lab.

He goes to one of the guest apartments (okay, guest floors, because Stark wouldn’t settle for anything smaller), but the shower has to wait as worry catches up and his hands begin to shake.

Bucky was in DC. A part of Steve is genuinely happy about this, because Bucky obviously decided to stick close to him and didn’t kill him. Another part can’t shove away the question why Bucky couldn’t just come to him and… what then? Ask for help? Ask for some more time?

He knows it’s selfish to think like that, he knows there may be a thousand reasons other than Bucky not wanting to talk to Steve or hating him. The hating part wouldn’t even be undeserved and Steve knows he can’t exactly ever make up for never looking for Bucky’s body in the Alps, but he’d do anything to make it better. The thought that making it better may consist in staying away from Bucky feels bitter in an almost physical way.

He tries to turn his mind off and do something productive; he manages to fully unwrap his hands, but turns out he’s too distracted to take a shower. He feels like he’d gladly fucking _run_ to DC to find Bucky. It’s unbelievable how he decided to haul his ass all the way to Kansas to sweep an abandoned Hydra base while Bucky was so close, maybe only across the street, and he missed him.

He ends up pacing the apartment rather furiously, his hands acquiring a life of their own, because he really doesn’t know what to do with himself and he can’t calm down either. Can’t chill and just sit down and do nothing knowing that Bucky’s out there, being tracked by Hydra at this very moment. Because of course they’ll be after him. And if they get to Buck before Steve does…

“They won’t. I won’t let them get you again. I promise, Buck. I won’t let you down ever again.”


	7. Chapter 7

He doesn’t pay attention to the names of places he visits. They don’t matter, he enters a town, sticking to the outskirts, gets some food, then retreats.

The house he’s in today is empty, he saw the owners leave. A young couple, they looked nice and he feels bad for stealing from them, but he doesn’t have much choice. He finds some leftover pasta in the fridge and wolfs it down, then goes as far as to make himself some tea. He doesn’t remember the last time he drank something hot and choosing from an entire fucking _drawer_ of teas is a little overwhelming, but he finally finds something called Lady Grey and decides to give it a shot.

He loves it.

He takes a moment to rummage through their closets, collecting useful stuff they won’t miss much (instant noodles are shit anyway, he’s doing them a favor taking such food away). He does the dishes in return for the trouble he caused and leaves.

It rains.

***

They’re sitting in the lab, looking at the map screened by JARVIS. Dots with corresponding images are scarce and though they have no way of knowing where Bucky really went, it settles Steve’s nerves a little. If they can’t tell the direction he chose, then Hydra can’t either. The only thing they know for certain is that he left DC.

“You sure no private cameras caught him anywhere beyond the city?”

“I hacked everything I could, if he’s on any other camera, then he’s virtually unidentifiable.”

“Good.”

“They still might have a tracker on him.”

“But then he would already be back in the chair.”

“Yeah, I guess. Unless the tracker is damaged or malfunctioning.”

“You think he could have disabled it?”

“No idea. All I’m saying is if I had a super assassin, I would definitely make sure to be able to track him all the time.”

“But it just doesn’t make sense if he’s being tracked and still free, right?”

“I never said it does. But then, few things that concern you do, so just keep in mind the tracker is an option. Hell, they might be setting a trap for you or something, counting on you following your Hydra boyfriend. Using him as bait, you know.”

“He’s not my boyfriend.”

“Yeah, okay, whatever. But consider it.”

Steve raises his eyebrows at Tony, not really impressed.

“I know that tracker is a possibility, the trap sounds… I don’t know. I can’t just leave it all like that, like I don’t care.”

“I’m not telling you to turn your back on him; I know it would be pointless, Cap. Just don’t do anything stupid on his account because it really will suck if I have to rescue two amnesiac supersoldiers from Hydra, okay?”

“Okay, okay.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“Tony, I’ve been to war, give me some credit. I won’t do anything stupid. Unless I’m 100% sure it’ll help him.”

“Yeah, just like crashing the Valkyrie helped anyone, right?”

Steve closes his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose. “That’s a low blow.”

Tony shrugs. “It also happens to be quite true. I’m sorry I have to be the one breaking it to you, but yes, my fear of you acting thoughtlessly because of your old pal is not exactly groundless, so please prove me wrong this time and think and plan and consult before you run into a fight you may lose. Besides, what’s in it for me if you want to sweep Hydra off the face of the Earth all alone? Don’t you think I deserve some fun? I definitely deserve this kind of fun.”

Steve sighs. “Who would I be to deny you any fun, Tony.”

“Pepper, probably. But don’t tell her.”

Steve laughs, half-heartedly but still. “I won’t.”

They fall silent and Steve starts considering hitting the gym again, because he doesn’t think he can let out all the impatience and worry in any other way, and Tony is already flipping through some schematics of his projects, but then he’s looking at Steve again.

“Hey, Cap?”

“Yeah?”

“Do you think Sam will like it if I paint his upgraded wings pink?”

“Yes, Tony, he’ll be delighted, even more so if it’s glittery.”

“You’re an asshole. I almost like you. Maybe I could upgrade your shield too?”

“Paint it glittery pink, so it matches Sam’s wings.”

“Great idea! I can also paint your boyfriend’s arm once we find him.”

And just like that, the worry is back, the mere mention of Bucky chases the playful mood from Steve’s mind.

“Just tell me if you happen to learn anything new about Bucky, okay?” He looks at Tony and can tell he sensed the change.

“Sure thing.” Tony shrugs.

Steve leaves him then to his work, intending to spend the rest of the day chilling, listening to music and maybe reading, but ends up in the gym anyway, punching sandbags until JARVIS politely reminds him he should eat dinner and go to bed.

***

He’s not sure what kind of building it is, all he knows is that it’s dark and in ruin. Might have been a factory of some sort, might have been a huge, multi-floor warehouse, might have been anything, in fact.

He glances toward the parallel corridor, Sam’s steps echoing among the empty walls.

“You sure about this?”

“100%, Cap!” comes the answer.

They proceed in silence, their footsteps and heavy breaths the only sound breaking the stillness of the dense, almost suffocating air. The plumbing hanging from the ceiling resembles the one he saw in Kansas, and somehow he doesn’t like that connotation. It’s equally ugly inside, the main difference is that here there are hardly any doors to hide whatever’s in the rooms. And there’s quite a lot of weird shit: old computers, fridges, explosives, empty bottles, all kinds of boxes and containers and whatnot.

The two corridors meet, a ruined elevator at the end and a slightly more trustworthy stairwell right next to it. The choice is simple, they climb the stairs. The corridor upstairs is dark, although some light seeps into adjacent rooms through holes in boarded up windows.

“Hey, Cap!”

He looks around and realizes Sam’s already somewhere further. He follows his voice.

And then, there’s a suite of rooms with more light than any other place in the building. He walks past an old rusty fire extinguisher, past some suspicious-looking lever, past a pile of garbage and into the next room. There’s a huge machine in the center and there, just next to it, sits Bucky.

Bucky!

Steve’s heart picks up and races at the sight, because his friend is alive and right in front of him. He’s looking at his feet, his face hidden behind the curtain of his long, greasy hair, but he looks more or less okay, no visible wounds, no missing body parts, he has enough muscle for Steve to be sure he hasn’t been facing starvation lately.

He wants to say something, but somehow his voice is stuck in his throat. He wants to say hi or call out Bucky’s name, he wants to look into his eyes as if he weren’t already sure who the man crouched by the machine is, he wants to scream and cry in joy, because it’s been so long!

And then, the second he notices Bucky’s metal arm is stuck in some kind of vice, the machine’s jaws clench him tighter, cracking the metal scales. Bucky screams in pain and tries to fight it, but it’s too tight, his arm already turned flat and flashing as its electric systems fail, and somehow there’s blood dripping through the scales.

Bucky screams, a heart-wrenching cry of agony, and Steve wants to rush to his side, but he can’t move. Not right, not left, not forward. He’s frozen and his body won’t respond to the urge to move.

He looks at Bucky as his heart stops for a moment, because Bucky’s not fighting anymore, not trying to wrench free, he’s collapsed, limp and curled up on himself, blood flooding the floor now, but that’s nothing, that’s too far from reality, too far from the center of Steve’s vision, too blurred in the background like in a nice picture.

All Steve can see are Bucky’s eyes, the icy blue with a suggestion of silvery gray, tears welling and slowly falling down his cheeks.

“Steve…” His voice is a coarse whisper, barely audible, but it reaches the ears it’s meant for all too well.

Steve tries to speak, tries to call out to Sam, but when he looks in that direction, Sam is gone. The shadows spit out Rumlow instead, a hideous smile on his face, eyes shining with some kind of sick fascination.

“Order through pain, Captain. Order through pain.”

He jolts upright in his bed, suddenly awake and vividly aware of his surroundings. He’s in his bedroom in the Tower, alone and still shaking, his heart pounding like it wants to crack his ribs and break free from his chest.

It’s hard to breathe, but he can’t bring himself to think about it and consciously breathe deeper, because that dream felt just too damn real. Bucky’s face, the vice, the blood…

He buries his face in his hands, trying to collect his thoughts, but whatever could make some sense is scattered and eludes him just when he thinks it’s in his grasp. Everything is buried under this weird, detached fear that certainly shouldn’t exist and maybe even comes from outer space or somewhere, but somehow it’s here and it’s in control. He barely registers the way his body starts to shake in abrupt spasms, forcing pathetic sobbing noises out of his throat, his head dizzy, sweat all over his skin.

He wants to go to Tony and tell him to somehow track Bucky no matter what, or go back to DC and retrace his moves and find a way to follow him. Damn, he wants Bucky where he can watch over him, because that’s the only way to be sure he’s safe.

He gets out of bed with the full intention to go to the kitchen and drink something, but he turns back halfway and ends up in the bathroom, running the coldest shower he can stand, his fists clenched and teeth gritted against the cold and the urge to punch something.

He tries to breathe and clear his mind of all his pain and frustration, focusing on the cold water, letting it soak him until he’s trembling and exhausted, mercifully too exhausted for a new flash of anger and helplessness. He goes back to bed and lies there, unsure if he really wants to fall asleep again or just wait for the alarm and his morning run. He does drift off eventually and when he wakes, he finds a text from Natasha.

_Coming over to NY today, wanna spar before lunch?_

He doesn’t question how she knows he’s in New York at all. _Sure_ , he texts back and gets up for the run, but he takes it easier than he intended to.

*

He’s grateful for the distraction; Natasha is a very good sparring partner, he only holds back a little to compensate for her lack of supersoldier serum, and he knows he’d have a hard time sparring with her without it, even with this much muscle and no health problems.

She still manages to pin him down and sure, she wouldn’t hold him for long if this was a real fight, but she finds a way to toss him on the mat more often than not.

“God, Rogers, you’re pathetic today.”

“Thanks.” He waits for her to let go and roll off him, and then sits up.

“I’m being serious. You promised to spar with me, not let me throw you around; I’m disappointed. Get up and fight.”

He groans at the accusation. “I am sparring with you. You’re just too good a fighter.”

“I’m a better fighter than you are a liar. I said get up, don’t waste my time here.”

So he throws himself at her without warning, aiming to pin her down, but she’s having none of it; she’s always ready. She rolls on her back and catapults him. He flips in the air and lands on his feet. They clash in the middle of the mat, throwing and blocking and dodging punches, and she forces him to focus and think, leaving openings he could use to win the round, but only with technique, not with sheer brutal strength.

It takes some time to fully engage his mind in the moment and not let it slip away into anything else, but once he does, he can see the faint smile creeping its way onto Natasha’s face and into her eyes, as they finally begin to spar for real, neither holding back or distracted by thoughts of things they have no control over. It’s just them and the punches and kicks they try to shower each other with, the blocking and dodging and deflecting, spinning in the air or running all over the gym, jumping and rebounding off the walls, flipping and pinning each other. They quickly lose count of rounds lost and won and pause only when Natasha accidentally draws blood from Steve’s forearm. She hesitates for a moment, but when Steve shrugs, willing to continue, she lunges again and they keep up the fight for another ten minutes.

Then she gracelessly drops on the mat, sweating all over and panting. If she’s surprised that Steve looks just as tired, she lets none of it show. She accepts the bottle of water he offers and pats the mat next to her. He sits down.

“So you can spar if you want to, after all.”

“You, on the other hand, could use a few lessons in complimenting people, you know.”

“Aren’t you supposed to be the ever-honest one in here? Appreciate the truth over meaningless assurances or something?”

“Like they’re mutually exclusive?”

She shrugs. “Depends on your goal.”

“Sure it does. What was yours?”

“I initially planned on kicking you in the balls before round five. But I reconsidered.”

“Thanks.”

“I can re-reconsider if you want, though.”

“I’ll live without it somehow.”

“But you’re still up for that lunch?”

“If you insist.”

She smiles that sly half-smile of hers. “I do.”


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There are some flashbacks and panic attacks in this chapter, so please proceed with caution. I regularly update tags as I go, but still thought I should warn.
> 
> Other than that, enjoy!

It rains for three days straight and Bucky has enough of this damn weather. He’s damp, he’s fucking soaked all the time and beginning to wonder if his supersoldier immune system can put up with it just like that or if he’ll finally have to pay.

Well, he doesn’t really want to know the answer.

He needs somewhere dry to stay. He can break into someone’s house for five minutes and be gone before they realize they’ve been robbed, but it won’t do if he wants to dry his clothes at least. The rugs he’s wearing cling to his body, restraining movement, which would be a huge disadvantage if Hydra found him.

Hydra.

He chews on the word for a few minutes, trying to recreate the mental map he knows is buried somewhere in his mind, scanning it for any possibly abandoned bases or safehouses in the area. It might be risky, but he doesn’t know where else to try, and it’s not like he won’t check the location is safe before moving in, so he goes for it.

He finds it quite easily, an old farm house, partially ruined, but surprisingly well supplied. There’s electricity and running water, so he takes a quick shower and puts on a pair of Hydra combat pants while his civvies dry.

He walks around the house gathering supplies he intends to take with him. There’s a decent backpack he decides to use; it’ll hold some food, spare clothes, some extra ammo. He finds new guns and knives, grimaces at the grenades but takes a few just in case. He intends to spend the night in the house but he knows he has to be ready to leave immediately if somebody shows up.

He takes another tour around the place, this time not paying that much attention to safety issues as much as looking for potentially interesting things. He doesn’t really know what he expects to find, but he looks nonetheless. The room he identified as the office looks the most promising.

There’s even a computer, but he figures it would report activity to someone somewhere if he switched it on and attempted to hack into the system, so whatever data he could find would be useless anyway if they captured him. He rummages through the drawers instead and chances upon a printout of what looks like a map of Hydra facilities all over the world.

Little red dots are virtually everywhere.

It makes him a little sick, because it’s one thing to know that Hydra is an international organization and another to actually see a proof of it still functioning on such a scale. It makes being their puppet even more horrifying, because who the fuck knows in what parts of the world he wrought havoc? He could have been everywhere for all he knows, killing innocent people that needed to be removed according to Hydra’s standards.

He folds the map and hides it in the pocket of his new pants (he’s not even sure when he decided to keep them) and opens another drawer.

Fuck.

He shuts it with a little too much strength and leans against the desk. He didn’t expect to see a picture of himself – of all the damn things that could be put in that drawer, on top of other things – in cryo.

He opens the drawer again and fishes the photograph, then closes the drawer. He sits on the desk, studying his own face. He must have forgotten to breathe at some point, because he’s gasping for air two minutes later, and even putting the physical picture away doesn’t erase the image from his mind.

It’s disconcerting how peaceful his face looks in the photo. Calm like a dead man, because really, what else would it be if they left him frozen forever? What is cryofreeze if not temporary death with the addition of the confusing thaw in an unknown time and place, at a whim of people he may be seeing for the first (and only) time in his life?

He sits on the floor before he falls, the walls spinning around him, his head light and empty, his heart racing.

_“Hold it still or it’ll fall, fuck, it can’t even stand on its own!”_

_There are arms all over him, forcing him into a chair, his body stiff and hurting. He still can’t see very clearly, everything is a blur._

_“Who the fuck wanted to hurry so much? There’s a fucking reason this procedure takes time. There’s a fucking reason we always keep it under the whole time. Even the fucking Russians knew how to do this right.”_

Fuck. He rubs his eyes, willing the memories away, but they won’t listen. He’s not the one in charge here. He’s never been.

_“Asset, you’re malfunctioning.”_

_“I’m still operational, sir.”_

_“No. You think you are, but I can clearly see you’re not.”_

_“Sir, with all due–”_

_“Silence! You do not question my decisions. You only obey.”_

_“Yes, sir.”_

_“Good. Sit down.” The restraints automatically close over his arms and legs. Two techs manually strap his chest and neck to the chair. “Open your mouth. Bite down. Good. Wipe it.”_

_“100%, sir?”_

_“Yeah, go all the way you can.”_

_“We haven’t used such extreme settings for quite some time, sir.”_

_“Well, we’ve run out of luck, apparently.”_

_“What if he– it, sorry, sir, what if it–”_

_“A complete wipe. Let it seize, let it hurt, let it stop breathing for a moment, I don’t care. I want the asset fully operational. Wipe it and freeze it.”_

He’s lying on the floor, trembling all over, cold sweat covering his back. The floor beneath him is hard and rough and he runs his hand over the surface, pressing harder and harder until it hurts, until there are red marks on his skin and his fingertips split, leaving drops of beautiful red blood smeared on the wood.

He presses his thumb to each other finger, testing the sensation, watching more blood drip out of him, real proof that he’s still alive, not dead, nor frozen, because there’s liquid blood in his veins.

He sits up, slow and careful, then stands up leaning against the wall. The picture lies on the floor, just where he left it, so he picks it up and slides into his pocket, right next to the map.

He opens the drawer again and searches it more thoroughly, but finds nothing relevant. He spends half the night rummaging through other drawers and closets, skimming different files and notebooks and loose sheets of paper. Nothing. Not a word on mind-wiping devices, cryo tanks, the asset.

He’s not sure if he’s disappointed or relieved.

*

He finally falls asleep in what appears to be some kind of common room, the only couch quite worn-out, but comfortable. He could have used one of the bedroom, but figured it might be too much. Beds would have belonged to specific Hydra agents and the couch is everyone’s and no one’s really at the same time.

It’s a little funny, but he thinks he was the same. He would take orders and punishment from any Hydra agent they assigned him to, but at the same time nobody gave a fuck about him. Sure, they had to keep in mind his performance and keep him in peak condition, but other than that they didn’t care.

Some feigned it, pretended to care, acted kind and all, and of course they fooled him, because it’s not like he had any descent point of reference, and even if he could see through their lies, he’d still take it. Hell, maybe some of them really cared a little. But no one cared enough to make it stop.

The first person to see another human being in him was his fucking target.

He’s not sure how well he remembers Steve. The Steve he once probably knew, that is. Because the one he met on the Helicarrier, oh, that one he remembers very well. His face. His eyes. God, he can’t remember ever seeing such eyes before. Like they were windows he could peek through and look at the raw soul living in the body, sincere and so full of life and emotions. Like they radiated everything that was going on in Steve’s mind and Bucky could almost feel some of it by osmosis.

And he feels much better, just knowing that there’s someone out there who chose to trust him, even if it was a foolish thing to do, stop fighting the Winter Soldier. It’s scary and nice at the same time, but his eyelids grow heavier and heavier, and he drifts off thinking about Steve, wondering when will come the time he’ll be ready to seek him out and talk to him, playing the conversation out in his head.

He wakes up to the sounds of human activity.

*

He gets up as quietly as he can, a gun already in his hand, and listens. He can easily distinguish three people talking, a woman and two men, though their speech is too blurred to make out actual words.

He wants to smash his head against the wall, because he doesn’t have all the necessary things with him. Sure, he has a gun and a few knives hidden, but he’s not even wearing a fucking shirt, not to mention retrieving his civilian clothes and other supplies he would need. He could jump out of the window and the spend the day in the forest if he knew the people would leave before dusk, but if they intend to stay for longer, he may not get a chance to sneak out as well-provisioned as he wanted to be.

He can hear footfalls on the stairs and spends exactly two seconds scanning the room for a good place to hide and still hear them. There’s a closet, but it would be a stupid idea, the bathroom probably an even worse one, so he opens the window and climbs onto the roof, the gun secured between his teeth, because there’s no time to holster it properly and still be ready to shoot.

They talk loudly and he’s glad they won’t be able to hear the little noises of him climbing.

“Will you ever shut up about it?” hisses the woman as she probably enters the room Bucky has just left.

“Why would I? It’s not like it matters anymore.”

“Maybe not to you.”

“Will you two stop acting like an old married couple?” The other man sounds like he might be in command. “We got work to do here, I’m not fucking gonna take longer than I have to.”

So, they’re probably Hydra. Bucky briefly considers taking them out before they can accomplish their mission, then shrugs it off as too risky. It wouldn’t take living agents long to piece it all together and realize who killed them. And he doesn’t even recognize these people’s voices, they’re probably not worth it.

“Jake.” The woman again.

“What is it this time?”

“Look.”

“What? Oh. Fuck.”

“Yeah.”

“Search this fucking place.”

Dammit. Bucky runs through the list of things he might have left in sight that gave him away, but he’s not sure what it is. He holds still, perfectly still and silent, as they finally think to check the perimeter. Morons. Maybe he should have taken them out after all. Maybe he still should. Then wipe all his fingerprints and run.

For now, he stays on the roof, listening.

He can hear distant sounds of guns being loaded, doors opened and closed, feet moving on hardwood and tiles, voices talking again, though he can’t make out the words anymore. He crawls to the center of the roof for better view of the surroundings.

One of the men appears outside and circles the house, a rifle in both hands, Bucky recognizes standard Hydra-used M4A1. It’s not a proof for his affiliation, but he’s obviously had some kind of military training, Bucky can see it in his moves, the easy way he holds the rifle, and it makes him worth the attention.

He’d make a nice, clean shot, even walking close to the walls. Bucky moves along the roof together with the man, quiet, focused, keeping his gun trained on his potential target. The man rounds a corner and somehow it occurs to him to look up.

Bucky doesn’t wait for him to raise his rifle, he pulls the trigger on instinct and curses under his breath. So much for stealth and secrecy.

It’s seconds till he can hear the other two agents somewhere below. He runs back to the room, swinging himself through the window and finds himself face to face with the other man. He throws his left fist at his head, feeling the skull crack under the metal knuckles. But somehow the sound of it is all wrong, like a gunshot, and it takes him a moment to register the unexpected explosion of pain in his left side.

He’s back in focus before the woman fires again, blocking the oncoming shots with his arm and advancing, just enough to reload his gun and fire back. She drops dead and he moves to inspect the man behind him, but there’s blood oozing from the wound in his head and he seems dead enough to pose no threat.

Bucky grabs their guns and checks the entire house for any other unexpected guests, but the three must have been the only ones. He looks outside, expecting to find a car or something, and he’s genuinely surprised to find no vehicle. It crosses his mind they might have parked further away, might not have been alone, and he runs upstairs to finally look at his own wound.

It doesn’t look very bad, certainly not lethal if he doesn’t mess it up, but the cabinet in the bathroom is well-supplied and he cleanses and disinfects the skin around the wound quickly and efficiently. Digging the bullet out is harder. He’d easily take the pain if a technician was patching him up, maybe he’d have to grit his teeth and hiss his way through the process if they treated him roughly, but as is, he goes to the little room across the corridor where more advanced medical supplies are kept and rummages until he finds lignocaine. He generously injects it into his body, right next to the fucking bullet, and gathers other useful tools as he waits for it to kick in. Once it does, he sets to work.

It feels weird to put the forceps into the wound and feel no pain while digging around in his body, but he doesn’t waste his time exploring the sensation. He finds the bullet and carefully pulls it out. Some blood tickles down his skin, though there’s not much, nothing to really care about. He’s bled much worse in his life.

He looks at the bullet before putting at away. “The bitch,” he smirks at himself, because he knows he was lucky. The bullet must have ricocheted off his arm or whatever else before plunging into his body, otherwise he would have been shot through and bleeding as hell, maybe to death. Stupid how he was sure they wouldn’t be back in that room so quickly. Stupid how he let his guard down at a Hydra safe house, thinking what exactly? Well, not thinking at all, apparently.

He cleanses the wound again and starts stitching. It’s easy and he makes short work of it, like he’s done it a thousand times before, only he can’t remember a single one. It’s similar to fighting and shooting; he has no idea when and where he learned to do any of it, doesn’t remember being bad at it and making progress, learning new punching techniques or gaining enough experience to shoot Nick Fury without even seeing him.

He disinfects the final product of his medical proceedings and dresses it. He could probably do without a supersoldier dose of antibiotics, but he’s not taking chances this time; the serum doesn’t protect him against everything, and he’s apparently not in peak condition if he let himself get shot.

He goes back to the main living room and fuck, he has to lean against the wall, because everything is suddenly out of focus and blurred. He closes his eyes and covers his face with his hand, blocking out all light. This only brings forth a weird ringing in his ears. He swallows hard tries to concentrate. What has he neglected? Was he hit anywhere else? Could the bullet be somehow poisoned? Could the disinfectant be really poison? That wouldn’t make much sense, but then why is everything so _wrong_? Maybe he should just drink something. Or eat something. Or both. He should go to the kitchen.

He peels himself off the wall and suddenly finds himself on his knees, swaying back and forth.

_A shiver runs down his spine when he sees the way his handler is looking at him._

_“Kneel properly, asset, you’re still on duty.”_

_He straightens his back and draws his shoulders. His hands are still where they ought to be, behind his back, crossed at wrists as if tied. Only no rope is ever needed, he knows where to keep them._

_“Now.” The handler walks across the room, pours himself some a glass of some golden liquid and sits on the couch. “Come here.” He points to the spot at his feet._

_The asset shuffles on his knees obediently, stops when he’s right in front of his handler and kneels properly. The handler ignores him for a few long minutes, drinking what must be cheap whiskey from the smell of it._

_“Get down on all fours,” he says quietly, so quietly the asset would have missed it if he was paying attention to anything but the handler. The asset unclasps his hands and rests them on the floor. The handler puts his legs on the asset’s back, the heavy boots hard against the soft skin. “Oh.” The surprised realization in the handler’s voice is all fake, but he does lift his legs and put them back on the floor. “I’m not being very nice to you like this, am I? You deserve a little better since you did your job so well today. You can remove my boots.”_

_The asset moves to his previous position, reaching for the hander’s left foot, but the man shakes his head and_ tsk _s at the asset. “I don’t remember telling you to get up. Put those hands back on the floor where they belong.”_

_The asset complies, making sure to press his hands down with some of his body weight, just so they don’t disobey. He looks up at his handler, uncertain how to proceed. The handler glares back._

_“I won’t repeat the order for the third time. Remove my boots.”_

_The asset panics for a second, until the realization hits him and he tries to compensate for the lost time. He presses his mouth to the shoe and closes his teeth around the lace, pulling gently but with enough force to undo the knot. He looks at his handler again, double-checking his progress, and the man gestures for him to continue. He unlaces the entire boot quite easily, pulling the lace out of each eyelet piece by piece, then stops for a moment. Should he somehow remove the first boot before moving to the second one, or should he unlace both and then find a way to pull them off?_

_The handler notices his confusion._

_“What is it, asset? Do you need me to lift my foot?”_

_He nods and the handler raises his foot, but before he thinks to react, the foot is moving toward him and connecting with his jaw. He sways sideways and barely keeps his position, only thanks to the unyielding metal arm. “It’s_ yes, sir, please _.”_

_“Yes, sir, please.”_

_“Good. Go on.” The handler lifts his foot again and holds it in front of the asset’s face. “Remove the boot and put it aside but within my reach.”_

_The asset opens his mouth and presses it to the sole of the boot, but there’s no way he can get ahold of it like that. He cranes his neck and analyzes the boot, then gently bites down on the counter, just enough to pull it off, not to leave a mark. The boot comes off easily and the asset sets it on the floor, right next to the couch, far enough so the handler won’t bump his foot into it accidentally, but well within reach._

_He doesn’t pause before redirecting his attention to the other boot, but sets to work immediately, before the handler has a reason to correct him. The laces obediently slide out of the eyelets under the careful pressure until he’s unlaces enough for the boot to slip from the foot easily. He stops there._

_“Sir?” he asks in a small voice, wondering if he’ll be punished for interrupting._

_“What is it this time?”_

_“Please.”_

_“Please what?”_

_“Please, sir.”_

_“Are you dumb? Communicate, asset. That is, in an understandable way.”_

_“Your foot, sir. Could you lift it, sir? So I can remove your boot. Please.”_

_“Oh, that’s what you mean. I guess I can.”_

_He lifts his foot and the asset sinks his teeth into the boot once again and pulls it off in a swift, fluid motion. He puts it next to the other one and looks at the handler hesitantly. Is there anything more he should do?_

_“Finally.” The handler stretches his upper body and sets his feet back on the asset, driving his heel into his spine with a little more force than absolutely necessary. The asset grunts under the unexpected pressure, but makes no move and the handler is merciful enough to ignore the sound._

_Time passes uneventfully, the handler relaxes and drinks more whiskey and the asset stands still on all fours. At some point there’s the characteristic sound of a lighter and then the smell of a strong cigarette, but other than that the handler makes no demands._

_Then he leans forward and the asset flinches at the unexpected touch._

_“Don moove.” The handler slurs as he presses the cigarette to the skin on the asset’s back and holds it there. The asset holds still against the pain, tears already gathering in his eyes, but he locks all his muscles in place and doesn’t dare move._

_The handlers smokes another cigarette and stubs it out on the asset’s back. Then another one._

_“I could brand you, y’know? Th’tentacles’d look good on ‘at skin, they’d match ‘at scar on your shoulder.” He puts his feet back on the floor and presses a finger to one of the fresh burns, yet another cigarette already in his other hand, already lit. The asset grits his teeth and inhales sharply as a new amount of pain runs through his nerves and he shudders–_

And he shakes, he’s shaking all over like he’s freezing, his weight resting on the metal arm, the flesh one wrapped around his body as he realizes he’s bracing for the pain long gone, but it doesn’t stop the sobs that keep escaping his mouth.

He reaches back with his right hand, trying to find the scars that must be there, but they’re either gone or he can’t identify them. He lets himself drop on the floor and focuses on breathing, but all he achieves is realizing how little control he has over himself at the moment.

The ringing explodes in his ears once again and he lets out a noise of frustration, because how can his own body work against him like that? He’d understand any kind of pain-induced weakness, he’s understand fever caused by infection, but whatever’s happening is out of his grasp, and it’s scary, fucking scary how nothing makes sense and how it leaves him powerless, a sobbing mess on the floor, his heart horrifyingly slow and way too fast at the same time, barely keeping him alive and yet almost cracking his chest as it pounds against his body from the inside.

He tries to push himself up but the whole room spins around in response and the floor is somehow moving underneath him. He presses his forehead to the hardwood and swallows hard, ignoring the shameful tears that well up in his eyes. After all, there’s no one to witness his shame here. He’s alone.

He’s alone, he’s so fucking alone, save for the two corpses he shares the floor with, and somehow that’s even worse than being really alone. He shivers even worse at the thought.

_He crawls on the floor, the slightly slippery tiles cold to the touch. Of course they are, cold and wet after he was hosed down. There’s no more blood on the floor, the tiles are white and shiny, as if nothing has happened, as if they’ve never seen all the red splattered over the room, dripping from the metal arm, scrubbed from between the plates and dug out from under his nails._

_“You did very well today, asset.”_

_He stops, looks at the man holding the hose. No, it’s not him that spoke. His handler is behind, well away from the hosing area, watching the asset._

_“Come over here.”_

_He crawls towards the handler, then rises as the man motions him up. They towel him and dress him in loose pants, no pockets, elastic waistband, the fabric dull grey all over and a matching shirt. As far from tac gear as he can imagine, as close to pajamas as he can ever get. It mostly reminds him of some kind of uniform, but he can’t quite place the association, because he knows uniforms suggest power and this is something that subordinates would wear. So he wears it obediently, glad the clothing doesn’t restrict movement or make his skin itchy._

_“And since you did so well, you deserve a reward. Follow me.”_

He rolls on his side and throws up at the memory of the reward. It brings food and the idea of eating into focus, and a voice at the back of his mind reminds him he was meant to go to the kitchen and actually eat something, but he’s pretty sure he wouldn’t make it that far.

The room around him spins a little slower, but he fears any attempt to move will unsettle his stomach again. He lies still, not sure if closing his eyes makes things better or worse, because for some reason the spinning and the nausea seem to work antagonistically.

Other than that, he’s just tired, completely exhausted. He lies on the floor for what he thinks is a few minutes, but might be an hour just as well, and slowly, carefully, crawls to the couch. He waits for a moment before climbing it, calculating his chances of vomiting or losing his balance in the process, but everything seems calm enough to risk it, so he makes the last effort and hauls himself up.

He knows he shouldn’t let himself fall asleep after the stunt he pulled the last time, but he doubts he could find the strength to fight it.


	9. Chapter 9

He wakes up on the floor, his throat not only acid from the earlier vomit but raw in a way he can’t even swallow around, his heart hammering in his chest like crazy, his mind spinning, but not the way it usually does, not exactly throwing him into the vast universe of strings of thought or memory he can’t even piece together, much less make sense of. It’s more like revolving, something urgent hiding beneath the surface, at the center of the universe, something he can’t ignore even though he doesn’t understand it just yet.

It dawns on him in a crashing way that could probably knock a person unconscious, but he’s not entirely a person when the mission-oriented Winter Soldier mindset kicks in, and it sets him into motion.

He sways a little on his way to the kitchen and eats fast whatever he can find, not really paying attention to what it is as long as it’s edible. He packs quickly, efficiently, taking only the most important things with him, checks on the dressing on his side. It looks okay.

Then he’s on his way.

***

Tony is beaming, talking to Sam about the parameters of his new wings and Steve has to suppress a laugh at the sight of Sam’s face. He’s clearly excited, though Steve’s sure he’d prefer to see and touch and try out the new gear rather than just listen about it. Even to Tony. Especially to Tony, who can go on talking for hours about his inventions and upgrades.

Steve doesn’t really follow their conversation, though he wonders if the wings are actually glittery pink. He barely even registers Tony answering his phone when it rings until he swears loud enough to snap Steve out of his not-exactly-presence.

“Tony? What happened?” He gets up from the couch he’s been sitting on.

“Natasha called, said she got her hands on information about some kind of Hydra warehouse. Don’t expect to find your boy there, though.”

“I hope I won’t.” Steve shudders at the very thought of Bucky being kept in a warehouse, even if logically he knows it must have been the case. He doesn’t want to think about it. He’s grateful when Sam speaks up.

“I don’t expect it to be totally abandoned, though.”

“Me neither.”

“Where is it?” asks Steve, already itching to go there and do something, because he won’t miss a chance to fight Hydra, and if there’s the slimmest chance of finding anything useful concerning Bucky, he’s gonna take it no matter what.

“Don’t have the location yet, Natasha says she’s gotta check one more thing before we can storm in.”

“Sounds like the warehouse might be a big deal, then?”

“Honestly no idea, they might keep their new high tech there just as well as old rusty crap.” Tony shrugs.

“But we got no plan until Natasha gives us anything more?”

“She just doesn’t wanna miss the fun. Knows we’d go right away without waiting for her.”

Steve actually smiles at that. “I don’t even know if I should thank her or yell at her in this case.”

“Technically you can do both.”

“And I will.”

“I wanna witness it, Cap!”

“Are you two done? I’d like to finally see my new Stark-made gear, and I’d rather thank Tony for it than yell at you for delaying.” Sam cuts in. Tony snorts at that.

“Honestly, you’re so boring, Wilson, I now see why you’re such good friends with Cap here. Of course yelling at people is much more entertaining than thanking them!”

“Tony–” Steve starts, but only gets enough time to roll his eyes before Sam continues.

“Yeah, you’re a CEO, of course you’d know.”

“No, I used to be one, but Pepper is so much better at yelling at people.”

“Her? You kidding, man? That woman is pure gold.”

“Cause you never pissed her off. And don’t think she yells like all regular mortals, no. She can do much better. Pray you never put yourself in a situation you find out.”

Sam shrugs in response. “Will do my best.”

“Attaboy! I think you earned a test flight of those wings. Cap, you coming to see the masterpiece?”

“Wouldn’t miss it!” Steve is a little surprised by his own enthusiasm. Sure, he’s interested in the invention, nut he didn’t expect himself to be actually excited to see it and Sam’s reaction. He knows it’ll be priceless. Besides, they won’t go on any mission without his wings, so it’s best to get on with the thing.

The ride to Tony’s lab is painfully slow, Sam’s impatience so palpable it fills the elevator and Steve would swear JARVIS could make it go faster, but doesn’t. Somehow the AI takes after Tony in a very clear way that makes Steve smile. If anyone notices, though, they ask no questions.

They enter the lab and _of course_ Tony has to make a big deal of showing the new wings, some kind of display stand holographically obscured until he claps his hands and the hologram disappears, fading dramatically. And Steve loses it at the sight, actually cackles and doubles over, because even his imagination of an artist could never come up with anything screaming pink and glittery that loud.

Sam’s face is even more priceless, sheer shock and disbelief, and Steve knows he’s wondering if Tony’s being serious or not, because with that guy you never really know. Tony betrays nothing, the grin on his face something between mysterious and shit-eating, clearly waiting for some kind of verbal reaction from Sam.

He gets it when Sam finally says, “What the…?”

He shrugs in response. “Your new wings, SI-made, highest technology you can imagine! Will let you spread your wings and fly higher than you ever have… oh, wait, I intended it as a metaphor and it’s not one anymore.”

“But why? Am I the Flamingo now?”

Steve laughs even harder. How does Stark keep that poker face plastered to his head in a mystery to him.

Tony gives Sam his most innocent look. “Oh shit, sorry, I fucking _knew_ it started with an _f_! But for the record, flamingos are a lighter shade of pink.”

“And not glittery,” Steve adds as soon as he can control his voice again.

“Et tu, Brute?” Sam raises his eyebrows and Tony interrupts before Steve can defend himself.

“Of course!  You owe him the glitter. I wouldn’t have come up with it myself, but the genius artistic star-spangled mind here was so helpful!”

“I’ll make sure you pay for this little addition.”

“Can’t wait to see that too! But first I’ll need you to test-fly and give me some feedback on this precious little thing.”

Sam snorts, “Okay, let’s go, everyone kneel before the glittery power of the fuckin’ Flamingo!” He approaches the wings and reaches out, freezing mid-air when Tony speaks again.

“Wait, you’re not gonna strangle me for this?”

“I was once told I look good in pink and I’m sticking to that. And the bad guys will definitely underestimate me, which, according to Natasha, is actually a good thing.” He shrugs. “I hope it’s safe enough for a test flight?”

“Sam Wilson!” The staged offence is clear in Tony’s voice. He crosses his arms against his chest and makes a face. “You’re wounding me with the underlying assumption that I’d present you with a faulty piece of equipment or anything short of genius. I won’t let you keep the sexy pink color if you continue to doubt in my ability to deliver.”

“Never in my life! I was double-checking, how dare you accuse me of doubt.”

“Quite outspoken, this flying friend of yours, isn’t he, Cap?” Tony looks away from Sam. “And to think people should be grateful for gifts they get, and most would forget how to speak if they got a set of brand new Stark-made wings, actual wings that let you fly and won’t rip like a pair of old jeans if Cap’s scary boyfriend pets them a little. Unthinkable!”

Steve considers commenting on the boyfriend part, but quickly decides it’s bait and Tony wants him to argue over that, so he smiles reassuringly. “Apparently I tend to make poor team choices and surround myself with the worst kind of people,” he answers, staring at Tony without so much as a blink.

“So weird you still talk to me, then.”

“I’ll stop as soon as you give Sam the final version of his new wings.”

“Well, let’s get down to business, then, I can’t wait to finish that project.”

The wings go on Sam immediately and Tony checks that all the straps are properly secured three times before nodding letting him fly first around the lab, which is kind of boring, and then outside, which puts such a huge grin on Sam’s face he could probably share half of it with other people and still be the happiest-looking person on the planet.

He flies a little cautiously at first, testing the wings, learning their responses, then starts simply having fun, performing stunts Steve isn’t sure he can even name half of, but he drinks Sam’s joy the entire time he watches him fly.

“Pretty good work!” Sam says when he’s finally back on the roof. “Could use some calibration, though. I like the acceleration, but turns could be smoother and tighter.”

“Yeah, I thought you might say that. The weight’s okay?”

“They’re slightly heavier than the old set, but I don’t think it changes much in the air, guess the design somehow makes up for it?”

Tony snorts. “Of course it does. This is as close to perfect as I could get without working with you in person, but that won’t be a problem now. Anything else you need done with the precious?”

“No, not that I can think of right now. But I’d like to fly it again before and double-check in case I missed anything.”

“Oh, don’t you worry, you’ll be testing it until you get sick of flying, and then some more, because nothing other than absolute perfection will satisfy me.”

Sam looks like he might challenge Tony on the getting sick part, but he’s probably too excited for that. “Deal.

His smile is contagious and it dawns on Steve he hasn’t felt this happy in a long time, like something in his life is finally going fine, like they’re headed in the right direction. He lets Sam and Tony go back to the lab and decides not to follow them. He chooses the gym instead and God, he’s forgotten how it feels to work out fueled by positive energy rather than frustration or worry. The wings are not finished, but they’re definitely operational. And as soon as they hear from Natasha, they’re going after Hydra again, and honestly, that sounds like his second favorite thing in the world.

***

He alters between walking and running. Logic says he’s bound to have someone on his tail soon, because three operatives obviously on duty don’t go MIA often enough for anyone to wave it off. Not at Hydra, at least. He makes sure to remain unseen whenever he can and draw little attention at all other times. He keeps up a good pace without draining himself; he has to be able to fight his way through a Hydra unit at any given time. He regularly checks the dressing on his wound and it looks okay, pain easily negligible, the wound healing well. He also makes his destination as unobvious as he can, going in circles or steering away from the shortest way to New York.

He briefly considers looking at some public transport options, but then he’s not sure if he would stand being locked in a place with so many people, possibly undercover Hydra agents, who would have enough time to look at him until they recognize the asset and organize a special welcome party in the shade of the Statue of Liberty. He may take the subway once he’s already in New York, since the cameras will have already recorded him, so what’s the difference, he may as well move faster around the city, but he’ll be a ghost until then.

The first day is uneventful and rain is the only thing that stops him from sleeping rough. Walking is walking, but lying down in such weather he’d quickly soak the bandages. Better leave that wound alone and let it heal. He breaks into someone’s attic without alarming the owners of the house, some family with three kids who make enough noise for him to eat in peace without freaking out about the slightest sounds he makes or the floor creaking or anything. Sure, he’s cautious, throwing things around the attic would undoubtedly attract attention, but he has enough time to find the most comfortable spot to sleep. He lies there, simply listening and waiting for the noise to subside, and falls asleep an hour after the house falls silent.

***

He opens his eyes and it’s dark all around, he can barely make out the shape of the room. His head is pounding, but he makes himself get up and tests his balance. It’s okay, he’s standing upright like nothing happened, his legs don’t threaten to give out the moment he takes a step forward, so he does. It’s okay.

He walks out of the room. The light in the corridor is blinding; he puts a hand over his eyes to block the main source and takes a look around. The place does have a familiar air to it, though he can’t recall being here before. He tries to focus even as his head feels like it’d be better off exploding right away when he hears voices from afar. He retreats back into the room and listens. The voices slowly die out, replaced by footsteps that pound in his skull like battle drums, and maybe that’s what they are, because three men go past him, one of them cuffed, the other two obvious guards.

The prisoner is obviously not a threat to him in his current position, but his focus locks on the restrained man and he can’t brush away the feeling of wrongness and familiarity, similar to the way he felt about the corridor, but somehow multiplied, stronger, strong enough to make his heart beat faster and his feet move before he even decides to follow the men.

He stays out of their sight, but close enough not to get lost in the maze of passages in the, well, wherever it is that they are.

When they reach what seems to be their destination, he freezes and heavy metal doors slam shut behind him. There, in the center of the room, stands the chair, monitors around it silent and waiting to be connected to the body. He automatically backs up, but only bumps into the doors.

He looks around but no one pays him any mind, the technicians glued to their monitors and machines, the two guards sitting the prisoner in the chair. He looks at that man and his heart stops for a moment, his breath caught in in his lungs and eyes going wide.

It’s him. The man in the chair is _him_.

He looks down at his own body, but it looks normal, the proportions what they were just yesterday, the metal arm wired into his shoulder and responsive, all of his muscles strong and ready for action, no injuries, no pain. He looks at the clone in the chair again and their eyes lock. He hoped to see some recognition in them, but no, they’re empty and dead as if no one’s home, just staring right into his. He can’t move.

It’s moments until his-but-not-his eyes are inches away from his face, still staring, drawing him the way vast empty spaces sometimes call to him when he’s high on a rooftop. He stares back into his own pupils, drowning in the blackness inside and the world spins around until he’s looking at the room from his place in the chair.

They tug a huge huge mirror in front of him and when he looks in it, he wants to annihilate on the spot, because the reflection has both flesh arms, eyes the wrong shade of blue, blond hair and an honest smile that reaches his eyes.

He wants to scream in horror, but his throat won’t obey, it’s stiff around a lump that suddenly blocked the way, closing his vocal cords, and yet it sends his senses to overdrive and he thrashes against the restraints, desperate to reach the mirror, to touch it, to break it, or maybe crack his skull against it, to do anything that isn’t watching Steve in Hydra’s hands, in this very chair, the electricity already heating up over his head, the rings rotating and the headset moving closer and closer, mere inches from his head.

He jerks awake with a pained whine and clasps his hand over his mouth before he even remembers where he is or realizes he’s literally marinating in sweat.

Fuck, that dream again. Exactly the same as it was the first time, exactly as real and as scary despite the obvious weirdness. Fuck, he’s gotta hurry. It’s not like he exactly believes in dreams and that kind of witchy stuff, but he’s not taking chances. Not with Steve, for fuck’s sake, not with Steve.

He tries to evaluate how far he is from New York as he waits for his heartbeat to slow down and his breaths to deepen, but his mind won’t work properly, it only feeds him the memory of Steve’s smile, so out of place in that mirror, in that chair, in that room. Right now he’d give anything to have that smile directed at him, meant only for his eyes, even if he doesn’t deserve it, even if the chances of that ever happening are slim, even if it’s the last thing he sees in his life.

It doesn’t matter, though. Doesn’t matter what he wants for himself, he doesn’t really need any of it as long as Steve is safe. That’s the utmost priority. He knows he won’t fall asleep again this night, so he carefully gathers his stuff, cautious not to make any noise, and slips out of the house, back on the road. The sooner he gets to New York and makes sure Steve is doing fine, the better.

Naturally, he knows Steve is theoretically much safer with his friends in New York than he was in DC, but Bucky won’t rest until he sees for himself.

***

Steve returns from his morning run to find Natasha sprawled on the couch on the common floor. She doesn’t even move when he arrives, only raises her eyes.

“Warmed up before mission, old man?”

“I must keep these ancient joints from going stiff.”

“Of course you do. You think you can keep up with us, though?”

“Where are we going? Where’s the rest, why aren’t they ready yet?”

“Waiting for the grandpa, I guess.”

“The grandpa will be waiting for all of you in no time.”

“Can we at least have breakfast before we set out, Captain?”

“If you can eat during briefing, then yes.”


	10. Chapter 10

He curses under his breath when yet another shoulder slams into him as he walks the Avengers Tower, trying to blend into the mass of people. He hates New York, he hates every fucking city in the world, because the constant noise takes its toll on him. His head throbs and he feels like a million voices from the past talk inside his skull, not exactly memories or flashbacks, but certainly something. His mind must have remembered to tune into the city buzz, damn it. Couldn’t have forgotten just that one little thing, right?

He hates walking in the crowd, but the very thought of embarking on any kind of public transport makes him sick. He manages to steal some food and a coffee on his way towards the heart of the city, then finds a suitable back alley where no one pays him any attention and climbs the fire escape to get to the rooftop. He feels much better up high, where no one can see him.

He takes a moment to look around the city, roughly plan his route to the Tower and all escape routes from the given point, then sits down for a while, trying to shush his mind before things escalate and get out of control. He can’t afford to get distracted by his own thoughts in an environment like this, where cameras keep a watchful eye over the streets. Sure, he’ll avoid the streets as much as he can, he can minimize his appearances on CCTV recordings, but he’d be a fool to believe he can totally avoid it. He makes a mental note to double his efforts in pretending to be a regular person and not draw attention.

He reaches the Tower by evening and spends the night analyzing all vantage points in its vicinity. He picks his favorite and stays there until dawn. His heart leaps at the sight of Steve, in his running gear, leaving the place for his early morning jogging. He feels the urge to follow him and memorize his running route, but Bucky ignores it. He’s tired and Steve looks fine, so it probably won’t hurt to put it off a little, just a day.

He closes his eyes and listens to his mind speaking for a while, but it only gives him parts of sentences someone once said to him, no order, no logic to them, just random words popping in his brain like bubbles. It takes conscious effort to open his eyes and watch the Tower again. After a while he’s sure he’s drifting in and out and forces himself to stay focused until Steve returns, then retreats into the shadows and allows himself the shortest nap in an alert mode.

He dreams of waiting, and damn, he’s waited his share in his life. He dreams of a hot afternoon in Brooklyn and waiting for each breath, each little portion of air forced in and out of Steve’s lungs (and Steve is so small and weak, nothing like what he is now), he dreams of lying on a rooftop of some ruin, a Johnson rifle in his hands, waiting for the Howlies to do their thing so that he can do his, he dreams of lying in the snow and waiting for death, and then death never comes, he only gets more waiting instead: for the pain to cease, for the pain to start, for orders, for extraction, for the cryochamber to claim him, for the cryochamber to let him go, for reward, for punishment and for no fucking reason other than he could be told to wait by one of his handlers.

He wakes up with a weird feeling that he’s not alone, and when he turns his head, he finds himself face to face with a pigeon. A fucking pigeon, staring at him, turning its head so it can get a better look with each eye.

“Shit on any of my stuff and I’ll eat you for dinner,” he warns. The pigeon coos at him in response and flies away towards the Tower. Good choice for the both of them; Bucky didn’t really feel like eating the poor thing.

He closes his eyes again, but sleep doesn’t come this time. More waiting, then. Okay, he can do that. He’s had a lot of practice, he knows how to do that.

He doesn’t know what he’s waiting for this time, but he waits patiently.

He finds out in the afternoon, when a quinjet lands on the Tower’s rooftop and takes off with the Avengers, Steve included. Fuck. So much for knowing that Steve’s safe. Bucky feels like punching something. Banging his head against the wall seems the most tempting, but it would probably do more harm than good, so instead he decides to walk around the area and draw a map in his head, making sure he knows all back alleys, fire escapes, gates and doors and whatever else might be worth knowing.

He makes sure to find reasonable sources of food, and yes, there’s a grocery store that dumps unsold food that doesn’t look nice but is still perfectly good every evening in the trash. Perfect.

He knows where he’s going for dinner this evening.

***

Although quite long, the flight is smooth, they land a few miles from the warehouse and continue on foot. They don’t talk much, Steve’s mind is already in mission mode and he’d be just physically incapable of maintaining small talk. He just wants to know if there’s anything interesting in the warehouse, whether it has to do with Bucky or just Hydra in general.

The warehouse is just a huge bunker in the middle of nowhere. There are only forests around, no roads, not even Hydra operatives can reach it by car. That means there may not be many people maintaining the facility. Steve isn’t sure if it’s a good thing or a bad thing. On the one hand, easier job. On the other, fewer Hydra agents will cease to be a threat to the world.

There are no guards posted at the door. Either they’re totally careless (is this how low Hydra has fallen these days?) or they expect the attack and have planned a nasty welcome party for the Avengers.

“Tony, do you have the key?”

“Of course, Cap!” Tony answers as he happily blows the door inside.

Steve enters first, expecting to see someone firing a bazooka or at least a decent rifle at him, but there’s no one. He’s in a wide hall, his team already joining him, scanning the place.

There’s a huge-ass door on the other side of the hall and a row of smaller doors to their right. Natasha and Sam check the small doors, revealing a kitchenette, a toilet and an entirely empty room, all unoccupied. Steve frowns at that and heads for the bigger door. It opens and finally, finally, there are people behind it, three and obviously not trained for combat, because they freeze at the sight of Captain America. He’s on them in an instant, but doesn’t silence the third one before he screams.

An alarm goes off in the entire facility, a high-pitched siren that alerts present agents, but also muffles out the sound of Sam and Tony taking off and Steve and Natasha running along rows and rows of shelves, boxes and whatnot.

Steve goes for a gun and hand-to-hand combat, not daring to throw the shield around here. He wouldn’t want to break anything without knowing what it is, what Hydra is or was up to. He doesn’t get too many chances punching people; they make short work of it, killing all trained agents and some scientists or whoever they are. Natasha shoots an important-looking one in the knee and ties him, but whoever puts up a fight gets put down pretty quickly.

They gather in one of the alleys.

“Anyone else think this went too easy?” Tony asks as parts of his suit whir and retreat, revealing his head.

“You mean apart from everyone?”

“That’s what I thought.” He sighs. “So where’s the bad guy laughing at us evilly while some secret troops charge us with a roar? Or at least some descent blasters?”

 “Late. Or not here at all.” Steve looks around for good measure, then briefly nods at Tony. “Search the place for anything important. Technology, data, locations, contacts or project Winter Soldier. Stay close by, always within sight of at least one other person. Then we’re out.”

“Roger that.”

They move, each taking an alley, but making sure to see their teammates. Steve quickly ends up walking the same alley as Natasha, both of them drawn to the large shape stuffed in the corner. A quick look at Natasha’s face tells Steve she’s knows what it is, and his heart starts racing.

“Is this…?”

“I think so. Want me to fetch Stark to take a look?”

Steve shrugs. “Doesn’t matter probably, it looks old and rusty enough. Some old type, long out of use.”

“I guess.”

“And it’s not like I need to know how to successfully freeze a person without killing them. Let’s move on.” He turns abruptly and walks away, mindfully focusing on the shelves rising all around him, looking at rows of files and boxes of old weapons, because if he doesn’t, he’ll start imagining Bucky in this very tank, and that would compromise his ability to lead a mission for at least a few minutes.

Natasha follows without a word and he’s glad she stays a few steps behind him, the silent unintrusive presence more supportive than he’d admit aloud. He’s also sure she knows all of that and that’s why she doesn’t veer into the nearest perpendicular alley to go through more hydra stuff.

“Cap,” he hears Tony over the comm. “I think I got schematics of a bionic arm, but it looks _ancient_ and the design is obviously nothing like the one your boyfriend’s wearing these days. You want it?”

“Take it. Anything else worth noting?”

“I think the Flamingo’s got something too, but you gotta ask him.”

“Sam? Do you copy?”

“Yeah, copy. I’m not sure if— well, you should see for yourself.”

“Coming. Where are you?”

“Somewhere on your right, unsurprisingly. Not far from the—can you see that weird sculpture?”

“I think?”

“Turn left next to it, then right, you’ll be passing a box with old shoes.”

“Sounds great.”

Steve makes his way towards Sam and indeed, there is the sculpture, though he can’t tell what shape it’s supposed to resemble, because right now it looks like a cross between a dumpling and a dildo, only the size of an actual human being. There are the shoes, too, old and probably not wearable anymore. Why Hydra would store any of this remains a mystery.

He reaches Sam and sends him a questioning look. “So?”

Sam moves aside. “Here, look at this. Tell me that I’m wrong and seeing things.”

Steve looks at the pile of rags on the nearest shelf and freezes. The air is suddenly thick and it’s hard to reach out, his hand heavy and moving through nothing in slow motion, because he doesn’t need to touch or unfold anything, he already knows what the rag on top is and it makes his throat squeeze tight, so tight it takes a moment to realize Sam is now digging his fingers into Steve’s shoulder a little too hard.

“So it really is.”

“Yeah.” Steve runs his fingers along the fabric, a frown on his face, disbelief, confusion and suspicion a wild mixture in his heart. He unfolds the rag and looks at the familiar rows of buttons and the unfamiliar faded blue, the ripped sleeve. “This coat is a mess. Must be how they found him.”

“I assume we’re taking it?”

“There’s no way it stays here.” He folds the coat and turns back to Sam. “I know it’s stupid. Don’t laugh at me.”

“I’m not. And it’s actually not as stupid as it seems, in the long run.”

“Thank you, Sam.” He says, stupid, not even sure what exactly he’s thanking for. Sam doesn’t say anything to that, he continues searching the facility.

Eventually they get some old data on Schmidt’s weapon research that Tony insists on taking and a selection of files in more languages than any of them speaks that may or may not prove useful.

No one even knows if they should count the mission successful or not.

***

He doesn’t know when he fell asleep again, but when he wakes up, the pigeon is back, walking close enough to irritate, but at a safe distance. Its shadow stretches long on the surface of the roof, the evening chill stronger than yesterday. Technically Bucky has no idea if it’s the same pigeon as before, but he doesn’t really care.

“Waiting for someone, too, pal?” He asks the bird, mostly to hear his own voice, make sure he’s real. It does the trick and anchors him before he lets his mind slip, he becomes aware of the cold concrete under him. The setting sun paints the sky pink and orange and yellow and that one realization fucking strikes him, physically stops his breath for a split second, because when was the last time he looked at a thing and saw a chance to appreciate it rather than evaluate? Has he ever done that at all?

It feels weird and it’s a little unsettling, discovering a new category that can be applied to the world. He leaves the pigeon to its own business and goes back to street level to get some food. His head keeps turning upward to look at what little he can see of the sky from down here, but it feels weird to look just because something’s nice and he’s actually frustrated at such lack of self-control.

He mentally kicks himself when he realizes he’s being followed, and shit, he should have known right away. He spots two men, one on each side of the street, and ignores the urge to walk into the nearest back street and punch the shit out of them. Maybe they’re not Hydra, in fact, they don’t even move like they might have gone through any military training. Maybe there’s no need to start a fight so close to Stark Tower. He’ll stay away from there for some time, find somewhere else to sleep tonight. For now, though, he pretends he hasn’t noticed the two men following him. He walks to the grocery store and stops abruptly when he finds the dumpster already occupied by a young woman, obviously underweight and malnourished. She pays him no mind as she pulls food out of the trashcan.

He’s not really sure what to do. Should he let her take as much as she needs and get whatever’s left for him? Should he interrupt? She looks at him before he makes up his mind.

“New to this kind of thing?” she asks politely, a genuine smile on her face.

He shrugs, bearing in my mind that if he’s followed, making contact will actually put her at risk too. She probably doesn’t deserve to pull her dinner out of the dumpster, but she definitely doesn’t deserve to become a potential Hydra target, even if it’s only for short interrogation. No one deserves to have anything to do with Hydra, after all.

“Come on, don’t be shy. They throw away enough for the both of us, and the people around really don’t give a shit about what we do. There’s no shame this either, nothing wrong with not having enough money at some point in your life. Besides, this stuff is still good to eat, some of it just doesn’t look pretty on display, you know? That’s why people think it’s not good, but it is. A bit like us, huh?” Her voice is calming and there’s something naïve and innocent about her, so Bucky finds himself walking closer and diving in the dumpster next to her. “Look at this, for example. A very nice apple, perfectly fine, but not pretty enough for some people to buy it. Thankfully, because we can have it for free. Here. Try it.”

He reaches out with his human hand he’s genuinely surprised when he grabs his wrist and slams a syringe into his arm. His mind switches to raw instinct and he pulls away, reaching with his metal arm in turn and punches her right in the face, hard enough to cause a concussion or maybe ever break her neck if she’s unlucky, doesn’t matter. He doesn’t look back and jumps out of the dumpster. The alley is suddenly crowded, six men already closing the circle around him, all armed with guns and knives. He also spots a sniper on the roof. Fuck.

There are too many. He’s not armed to fight them all right now; besides, even with a serum-enhanced speed he can’t count on shooting them all before he gets shot himself. Bucky punches the nearest one in the face and runs. A dart hits the metal arm and it turns out Bucky can run even faster than mere seconds before, because getting sedated and dragged back to Hydra is twice as bad as being shot in the head would be.

Another dart hits his thigh and he yanks it away quickly, but yet another bites his neck and a second later three more bury in his body, and he knows he’s screwed.

He keeps running, pulling out the darts with his right hand and using the metal arm as a shield, but there are just too many. It crosses his mind he could off himself before they so much as touch him and then his legs give out and he falls on the pavement. He tries to reach for the gun holstered at his thigh, but his metal arm suddenly buzzes and stops responding, and someone steps on the flesh one, immobilizing it for good. The tranquilizer must be really kicking in. He looks up and frowns, because somehow he expected to see one of his previous handlers or co-workers, but the face looking back at him is new.

He can hear footsteps all around and doesn’t have to look to know everyone has their guns trained on him. His eyes close against his will and it takes an almost superhuman effort to open them again and drag his gaze upwards again. The man stands towering over him and Bucky feels sick as he realizes he lost. There’s not a thing he can do. He failed. He hasn’t reached Steve, hasn’t reached _out_ to Steve in time. The man kneels down and leans over him, so close Bucky can feel his breath hot on his neck.

“I wonder if this actually works.” He pauses, his breath carrying the poison in his words onto Bucky’s skin, the heat painful, suffocating, burning like acid. He smirks and Bucky can hear the malice in his voice. “Sputnik.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is probably where I should say I'm sorry for what I've just done. But I'm a bad person and I'm not sorry for any of this, mwahaha! *rips her own heart apart, leaving only shreds, barely enough to feel a thing*


	11. Chapter 11

They fly home in silence. Or rather – Steve does, because if the others talk, they don’t bother him, just leave him be, and he’s both thankful and ashamed; now that Bucky’s old coat is in his hands, he can’t stop fiddling with it.

Natasha’s reading one of the Russian files, but her face betrays nothing. Tony keeps frowning at the arm schematics he found. Sam just stares at his phone and Steve has no idea what he’s reading or watching.

He just keeps fiddling with the coat they recovered until they finally land on the Tower’s roof and then end up on the common floor for some sort of debrief, Tony and Natasha casually sprawled on the couch, Sam and Steve taking ridiculously big and comfortable armchairs. Steve enjoys the common floor’s furniture on most occasions, but today he couldn’t care less about what he sits on as long as it doesn’t explode under him. He clears his throat before asking, “So, what do we have?”

“Files on virtually everything, from what might have been an early mission or some mission-like training, I can’t tell because there are pages missing, to some plumbing reports for one of the bases. Most are in Russian or English, but I found five in German, three in what looks like it might be Romanian, two in Polish and one in Chinese. I can’t read them all, though.”

“We’ll feed them to Jarvis, he can translate whatever’s worth it,” Tony assures. “And as for the arm schematics, I can already tell you this is an old design, doesn’t look at all like the arm he’s wearing these days, but I doubt that would be their earliest prototype.”

“So they didn’t replace his arm just the once? Is that what you’re saying?”

“I’m pretty sure they’d want to keep their weapon in peak condition at all times, and yes, this means upgrades. Hell, I improve all my inventions all the time, and I can come up with approximately not a single reason why they wouldn’t do the same with him.”

“I don’t like how it sounds at all.”

“Me neither, but I appreciate the technology. Besides, consider this: the arm’s been upgraded, maybe parts of it actually reinvented from scratch, over the years. The whole design is performance-oriented, so the better the arm, the more reliable its owner. Which means there is very little chance the arm, unless damaged, causes him pain or discomfort just by being there and hanging from his shoulder, because that would affect his performance. Naturally, we can’t know for sure until we ask him, but I really see no point in making his arm hurt constantly. Hydra are bastards and assholes and all sorts of bad guys, but they’re not stupid.”

“I know. And while all you’ve just said makes perfect sense, I still don’t like any of it.”

“Wanna take a look at the arm? I can guide you through every part.”

“I’m more into those files at the moment. Have Jarvis translate the ones that aren’t in English, I’m taking the rest right away.”

“No way, Cap, I’m scanning them all before I let you steal a single page. Jarvis, buddy, scan these files for me and make them readable for us simple minds.”

“Certainly, sir, although, if I may, I would suggest taking some rest before reading them, these make hundreds of pages to read and at least two of the people currently occupying this floor have shown serious negligence of sleep in the past—”

“I have no idea who you’re talking about, Jarvis, this must be some mistake. I can see Cap, but you must have mistaken, I dunno, the Pink for the Green maybe?”

“My color discrimination is perfectly fine, sir, thank you for your concern.”

“He’s right, though.” Natasha looks pointedly between Steve and Tony. “Once you start reading the files, you won’t stop. I say we read the files together, but we all could use some rest.”

Steve finds himself torn between the urge to read all they gathered as soon as he can and the way his body seems to be catching up on the idea of tiredness, even if the mission wasn’t especially demanding. He’s also glad nobody mentioned the coat he brought, because the sentimental value doesn’t sound half as important as the content of those files, and he really wouldn’t want to explain why exactly he needs to keep the thing Bucky was wearing when he fell to his – as they thought at that time – death. He’s not even sure he really understands it and would be able to lay it out; it’s just that he knew he couldn’t leave the coat in there, neglected in an old Hydra warehouse. He can keep it and give it to Bucky one day.

One day, but not today. Today he ends up on his own floor, pacing the length of the living room with the coat in his hands, trying not to think about—

_Steve watches Bucky dress for their first mission, his heart pounding hard in his chest with gratitude for Bucky’s presence. Because God knows there was a time he was almost sure he’s never see him again, and yet here they are, side by side, getting ready to blow up a Hydra base, across the world, working on things he wouldn’t dare to dream about not so long ago, with that poor health of his._

_He’s not sure if anyone measured Bucky for this uniform, but the thing looks like it fits perfectly. Sure, it’s quite peculiar as far as uniforms are concerned, but Bucky doesn’t complain, so neither does Steve. He actually likes that blue coat, so far from standard army stuff, unusual, one of a kind, eye-catching, but in a polite way. It fits Bucky, but it suits him and matches him as well, on more than one level._

_“Don’t laugh,” Bucky says, apparently catching him looking. Steve drags his eyes away from the buttons up to his eyes._

_“I’m not laughing.”_

_“I know it doesn’t look like your typical military uniform, but—”_

_“But you’re keeping it, right?” Steve teases._

_“As long as you’re keeping yours, Captain.”_

_Steve isn’t sure whether it’s more wrong to say_ then I’m keeping I forever _because damn, Bucky looks good in his, or_ won’t be too long then _because—_

He pushes away that train of thought, not sure why he was even thinking any of this, both now and back then. It’s not like he ever wanted to fuck his best friend, he never did, but he couldn’t help his mind wandering in different directions for no apparent reason, thinking about things and picturing images he was curious about, even though he didn’t actually want for the scenarios to play out anywhere outside his head and would probably do his best to prevent them from it if they threatened to happen in real life.

He sets the coat on the couch and sits in the kitchen, sipping tea. His stomach gurgles once or twice, but he’s not really hungry and sticks to drinking. He’s also glad he can’t get drunk anymore, because that way alcohol isn’t even tempting. There are moments he regrets not smoking either, but then, having grown up with asthma, he just can’t find it in him to inhale anything potentially harmful even if the serum makes him virtually immune to any such problems.

Bucky used to smoke a lot during the war, probably even more than before. It was mostly hard to get cigarettes, but somehow he always managed to play poker with the right people or maybe simply charm them into giving him enough smokes to even share with the other Commandos. The blue coat had an inner pocket where he kept some of his smokes, “ _just in case, Steve, you gotta be prepared, what if we’re lost somewhere with nothing but the rags on our backs?”_

_“Yeah, Buck, okay.” Steve shrugs._

_“Don’t you dismiss it like it means nothing. You’ll be thanking me when this precious money buys you bread in the middle of nowhere in Poland, or a roof to sleep under on a winter’s night in Austria.”_

_“It won’t buy me anything if you smoke it all first.”_

_“That’s why I’m constantly replacing the stubs. I’m planning ahead, Steve, taking worst-case scenarios into consideration and getting ready for them.” Bucky puts one of his cigarettes into his mouth and lights it, deliberately smiling at Steve._

_“You realize you’ll be richer if you just keep them all?”_

_“That’s not the point, or not the only one. Besides, I wouldn’t fit all of them into that pocket, I’d have to give some to someone to keep them safe.”_

_“That a problem?”_

_“Yeah, there’s no one worthy of this task.”_

_Steve raises his eyebrows. “Really?”_

_“Unfortunately.”_

_“Thanks, Buck.”_

_“Sorry, pal. You know I trust you with my life, just not with my fucking cigarettes.”_

_“Quite a thing to say.”_

_“Couldn’t lie to you. Wanna take a hit? It’s quite good, I’m surprised myself.”_

_“Maybe next time.”_

_It’s Bucky’s turn to shrug and if Steve sees a little bit of disappointment in the gesture, it’s gone instantly. Maybe a mistake. After all, he can’t read Bucky so easily anymore, not since Kreischberg. They stay silent, leaning against the wall of a ruined house and watching people pass by. There are few, though, hurrying their way and paying no attention to the two of them. The entire town has an empty air to it, a grimness so characteristic of war. It’s still a little shocking to realize they’ve seen so much misery it hardly affects them. Sure, they care about the people, help as much as they can, but it used to be harder to fall asleep after an entire day of witnessing all kinds of pain._

_Bucky pushes himself off the wall, interrupting Steve’s thoughts. “It’s past 1000, I guess if Dugan’s not here already, he’s not coming.”_

_“Uh, I guess?”_

_“Let’s get going, then.”_

They didn’t talk much that day, but Steve still smiles at the memory. They spent the entire afternoon roaming in the forest, looking for what the locals claimed was a ruined castle, but they either didn’t find the place or it had never been a castle; all that was left was a pile of stones hidden among thick bushes. They came back later than they had planned, Bucky a little disappointed about the sightseeing fiasco, Steve silently nodding agreement, though to be honest he enjoyed the quiet walk, a day’s respite when he could afford to enjoy not being needed anywhere without feeling guilty about it.

It feels weird even now though. He knows he could go on for another night or two without much sleep, but then his friends would stay up too, or at least try to push themselves to their limits, and as much as he wants to learn whatever he can from those files, he won’t let them lose sleep for him.

He figures he should maybe try to sleep a little bit himself, because if he can’t know anything right now, he can at least gather strength for when he might need to act quickly. He skips the shower and goes to bed, but the more he wants to drift off, the more active his brain becomes, supplying thoughts and memories against his will.

How many nights did Bucky spend lying awake, making sure Steve’s body continued to breathe? How many times did they fail to fall asleep because they were afraid of sleeping through the enemy’s attack and either not waking up at all or rising to find all of their friends dead? How many times did Bucky have trouble falling asleep after Kreischberg, and how many nights did Steve spend listening to him breathe, praying that he didn’t dream, that whatever had happened to him in the underground Hydra laboratory didn’t come back to him for one night?

He rolls onto his other side and closes his eyes, trying not to think about anything, to shut down all memories and plans and fears and hopes, to forget the past and the future and just be, but

_He’s fourteen and his lungs won’t suck in air properly, and his Ma isn’t home this night. The world seems far, far away and everything, every single part of him hurts, and he’s alone, so alone, why does he have to die alone like this?_

_“Steve? God, look at me, no, I’m here, come on, focus, please, Steve.”_

_That voice. He thinks he’s heard it before, he knows it, but how does it make sense? He’s alone and dying, why is there anyone else around here?_

_“Steve.”_

_He knows this voice. He tries to focus on it and somehow it drifts closer, so close it’s almost comprehensible._

_“Steve, you gotta breathe, okay? Listen to me.”_

_He listens intently._

_“Breathe with me, okay? In and out, as deep as you can, you need some of that air, in and out, that’s right, that’s it, breathe.”_

_He’s not sure why it’s important, but he tries not to disappoint the person speaking to him. It’s hard, every breath a struggle, every little bit of air precious and important, every more or less successful breath a step closer toward life._

_He wins. He lives through the night and eventually falls asleep, and then wakes up to Bucky’s concerned face right above him._

He rolls onto his back and covers his eyes with the crook of his elbow, trying to block what little light still prevents him from sleeping. It’s finally dark.

_The corridor is dark and he’s not sure where he’s going until he rounds a corner and sees a distant light of an unbroken lamp. He follows it, takes another turn, and then there it is, he hears the weak voice mindlessly reciting the same words all over again._

_“Sergeant.”_

_His heart stops at the sight._

_“Three-two-five-five-seven…?  Bar--”_

_“Bucky?” He’s already by Bucky’s side, his heart shattering when he sees the empty gaze, when the relief of finding Bucky alive still hasn’t washed over him, adrenaline flowing wild through his veins, the only thing keeping his blood cold enough to snap the restraints open. “Oh my God,” he mutters to himself, the metallic clink echoing like background choir._

_“Is-is that—” Bucky sounds like he’s not exactly aware of what’s happening around him, maybe drugged, maybe sick, certainly in no shape to make it out of the facility on his own._

_“It’s me,” Steve says quickly, desperately hoping to pump some sanity into his friend’s dulled brain, because if he’s to do anything to him right now, carry him outside or whatever, he needs at least a little of his trust. He won’t do anything until Bucky knows the guy looming over him won’t hurt him, fuck, that guy would sooner die that hurt Bucky. “It’s Steve.”_

_“Steve? Steve—”_

_“Come on.” He pulls Bucky to his feet, hoping that the drowsy confusion written into Bucky’s voice is enough for now. It’s better than outright resistance, after all._

Steve jumps out of his bed and heads for the bathroom. He splashes his face with cold water, because to hell with sleep, that particular memory is just too much, that weird mixture of feelings, the pathetic old relief of getting Bucky back alive and in one piece, and the new sick realization that this was where it all started, they experimented on him, they had already begun to turn him into their weapon, years before they learned how to wipe his mind.

And yet, even after his captivity, despite that undeniable tension that settled into his shoulders forever, that dark shadow that dimmed the light in his eyes, even then Bucky still took care of Steve whenever he could. Another memory pops up in Steve’s mind, this time a welcome scene, warming his heart right away.

_It’s been a long day and he’s really tired, but there’s still so much to do. He walks around the camp, double-checking everything, because the weather is really awful, the ground damp from recent rainfalls, another downpour threatening to strike, and they’re short on everything. Hardly enough food to feed them, not enough blankets for every Commando to sleep under, not enough time to prepare for the mission. Even Bucky’s legendary cigarette supply has grown short, and Steve hasn’t seen him smoke for days. If they were in any better mood, he might tease Bucky about the cigarettes buying him food and shelter, but as is, it’d only add up to Bucky’s worries and put some sort of guilt trip on him._

_Steve doesn’t even remember collapsing on his bedroll and falling asleep, but when he wakes up in the dead of the night, it’s not from the cold. He wraps the blanket tighter around his shoulders and closes his eyes. He’s already drifting off when the realization hits him: there’s no way he should be sleeping under a blanket._

_Further investigation reveals it’s not a blanket, because blankets usually don’t have buttons or pockets smelling of tobacco. Bucky’s on the other side of the tent, breathing calmly, and while a tiny part of Steve wants to shake him awake and yell at him, he shushes it down quickly enough and accepts the gift, though mostly for Bucky’s sake. He closes his eyes again, thanking God for Bucky’s dreamless sleep and enjoying the warmth of the coat, and drifts off again in no time._

He gives up.

He dries his face and goes to the living room, ignoring the pang of shame and weakness in his heart. Because who’s gonna know? And even if someone finds out, is there really anything to be ashamed of? He reminds himself there’s absolutely nothing to feel bad about and shuts down the little voice that tries to put up a fight.

He goes straight to the couch and flops on it, then gathers the coat and folds it under his head. It’s weird how it doesn’t even smell of Bucky anymore, just of old warehouse and dirt. Not unexpected, but weird at the very core of things. But then at least it’s here, real and touchable, with two rows of buttons and that cigarette pocket, a proof that Steve hasn’t made it all up, that Bucky Barnes once lived and fought in the war, and smiled from behind a cigarette from time to time. The smile didn’t always reach his eyes, but when it did, Steve always experienced it as some kind of blessing, though whether for him or Bucky he couldn’t tell.

He shifts, finding a more comfortable position, his head still pillowed on the coat, his thumb smoothing over the soft fabric like it could somehow reach Bucky that way and share some of the comfort he has now.

He falls asleep like that, his breathing gradually slowing down, his hand stilling after some time, his mind shutting down to one last thought, one last hope and wish he has: that Bucky’s safe.

***

Consciousness comes back slowly; he feels like he’s wading through molasses until the world around him clears a bit. He opens his eyes and hardly suppresses the urge to throw up when the light hits his pupils, setting a fire in his head. A grunt escapes him and a second later he’s backhanded and almost retching again.

“No one said you can fucking make a sound.”

Bucky looks at the man who shut him down not long ago. That earns him another slap.

“Keep your eyes down, asset. I thought they taught you better than this.”

He looks at his knees, gently moves his legs. He can feel the restraints holding him seated in a huge metal chair. Thankfully, he can’t spot any monitors around, so it’s probably not the mind-wiping chair. Maybe they don’t have one in this particular facility. Maybe it’s just in another room.

Maybe they won’t wipe him if he’s good. Maybe he can pretend to be their asset and get another chance at escaping.

He locks his eyes on his knees.

“What was your last mission, asset?”

“Project Insight, sir. Mission: eradicate target.”

“Who was the target?”

“Captain America, sir.”

“Yes. What’s the status of the mission?”

“Mission aborted, sir.”

“Why?”

He should say _malfunction_. He should admit to failing. If he says _malfunction_ , they’ll recalibrate him. Fix him. Wipe him.

“Reason unknown, sir.”

“Unknown?”

“Unknown, sir.”

The handler slaps him again.

“I’m not deaf, asset.”

He should apologize. He should say _I’m sorry_ but he doesn’t remember if saying _I_ is allowed. He thinks it depends on the handler, they might have had various preferences concerning his speech, but he doesn’t know this one. He doesn’t know what to say.

“The asset needs maintenance, doesn’t it?” That’s a new voice, coming from somewhere behind Bucky. He shivers at the sick fascination he can hear in it.

“Apparently,” says the handler. “We’ll talk when you’re back to your true self, asset. Oh, and by the way, welcome back. You must have missed us terribly.”

They pat him on the cheek and leave, turning off the light.

He throws up.

***

They push him into a tiled room, his hands cuffed behind his back, the metal arm still inactive, just dead weight hanging from his shoulder. He doesn’t put up a fight, he knows he’s too weak and they have tasers and tranq darts again. They hose him down, the cold water hitting his skin painfully, but at least it wipes the vomit from his chest.

They dry him with rough towels and put him in regular combat pants again. No shirt. No boots. He’s actually surprised he got anything at all.

They lock him in a small cell with no light. No restraints, but he can hardly stand up and lie down in this empty place. He sits with his back against the wall and cradles the unresponsive metal arm for a moment, trying to take some weight off his shoulder.

The tears come soon, unbidden. Fuck, he was so, so stupid, thinking he could run from Hydra for as long as he wanted and needed, thinking he could make it long enough not to come back to Steve with his mind still in chaos, hoping he could figure it out on his own. Planning not to be a burden if he approached Steve with everything already sorted out, strips of memories making sense, little pieces of a larger universe he would understand by then.

He’s not sure what he was afraid of anymore. Being rejected? Hurting or disappointing Steve? Being lied to?

He fucked up. If there’s one thing he knows, it’s that Steve wouldn’t let him get captured again. But here he is, held tight by the relentless tentacles, the countless limbs that never truly let go, especially not if they have already slipped once.

His only hope is that someone – not Steve, God, please, not Steve, even though he’d like it to be by his hand – will take him out on his nearest mission.

***

He quickly loses track of the passing time with no light to tell the time of day. He thought he could assess it on the basis of his meal schedule, but he quickly realizes the pattern is either too complicated to keep track of without anything else to go by or simply nonexistent. They seem to be feeding him randomly, probably whenever whoever’s in charge remembers to tell them to.

Even when they come to slip him some food, they only open a narrow slot in the door and push it into the room without making any contact. Nobody says a word to him and he doesn’t even try to elicit any verbal response; he knows there’s no point. He’s been in solitary confinement before and he’s well disillusioned: he’s sure it’ll take its toll on him.

Without any sense of the passage of time, he has no idea when exactly he starts hallucinating, but he recognizes the trick his mind starts playing on him as soon as he sees a Glock lying in front of him, tempting so much his flesh hand itches. He curls and uncurls his fingers, knowing exactly what he’d do if the gun was real, but refusing to give the madness free reign just yet. Maybe he’s not that mad if he knows it’s just his imagination; it’d be much worse if he really believed in what he saw, like he did the first time, years and years ago, when they were only beginning to break him.

_He scratches at the stump of his left arm, wincing at the pain but continuing until he realizes he’s drawn blood. He stops abruptly, gritting his teeth against the self-inflicted pain, then bites down on his hand to keep it from moving. It helps._

_He lets go when his body starts trembling and then fully shaking, like it could maybe shake out the emotional turmoil inside him, but he knows it won’t. He’s been there. He’s shaken and thrashed and cried and screamed, he’s punched and kicked walls, he’s bitten down on his arm, he’s pulled at his hair and he’s smashed his head against the wall. Nothing’s ever changed._

_Not until the slot on the wall screeches and opens, and he knows it has to be food, another modest ration to sustain his body just enough to keep him alive, but well below any real threat level. He knows it, but he pays no mind to the food, because there’s one more thing on the tray._

_A gun._

_He doesn’t recognize the model, so maybe it’s something Hydra-made, or just upgraded to the point where he can’t recognize what it was based on._

_Doesn’t matter anyway._

_The gun is tempting and either he’s really going crazy or it’s more than just an object and it talks to him. Not in words, naturally, but it has a certain magnetism to it, like it’s reaching to his very soul and heart, and its call echoes in his mind. He’s mesmerized and he’s sure he spends a better part of the following hour simply staring at the gun and entertaining the possibilities its presence grants him._

_His stomach interrupts his musings with a loud gurgle and Bucky shakes himself awake. He eats his food and lies down, waiting for sleep or delirium or whatever (and what’s the difference, really?) to claim him. He waits for long and then gets lost in his mind for even longer, but when he’s lucid again, the gun is still there, in the exact spot he left it, still offering an easy way out._

_He thinks about it until his body starts acting weird again, moving uncontrollably and squeezing tears from his eyes and pushing air from his lungs in sobs. Because although he knows he should be long dead, that fall should have finished him, although he knows there is no happy end to look forward to, he can’t bring himself to this. His hand itches, this time for the gun, but at the same time something stops it from actually grabbing it, like it’s too heavy or just unresponsive._

_Again, he’s not even sure how long he drifts in and out of consciousness, or rather the state as close to it as he can get in his current condition. It might be hours or days or weeks until he eventually can’t stand any more of himself and his hallucinations, his skin burns the way that makes him want to peel it off, his mind shuts down on him at random moments, his throat feels raw even though he doesn’t remember making a sound for a long, long time. He’s done, there’s nothing more for him, and when hopeless fear clenches his insides once again, he reaches for the gun, fully intending to just make it stop, because he can’t spend all eternity like this, a mess of a lonely human, barely in control of himself, with hallucinations as only companions of his misery._

_He bends his aching back forward and lays his hand on the gun. His fingers cut through empty air and scrape on the floor. He collapses before he starts to shake, spasms tossing his body left and right, but he just doesn’t care anymore. He’d like to think this is the end, but no, of course it isn’t. The end is a point in time, and he’s facing an extended ending stretched into eternity of solitude and madness._

_No tears come when he tries to summon them, hoping they could ease the pain of the realization._

There are no tears now either. They would serve no purpose. He knows the Glock is fake, maybe it’s just his mind adjusting to the reality it remembers, projecting hallucinations sooner than it did the last time, or maybe he’s already further gone that he believed. Maybe they drugged him, or maybe he hasn’t been taking good care of himself and drove himself weaker than he should have. Or maybe he did everything right and was just unlucky.

It really doesn’t matter anymore. The outcome is what it is. All he can do is comply and play the role of the asset, and take the chance at escaping if he sees one, but he doesn’t keep his hopes high. They will be cautious and planning to wipe him as soon as possible. Then either send him back against Steve or freeze him and give themselves time to grow stronger without the risk of losing the asset again.

Everything would have been so much easier if Steve hadn’t refused to fight properly back in DC. He’s not gonna blame him, of course not, but it’s an intrusive thought he can’t let go of easily. It rings too true. If only that mask hadn’t come off, then maybe he wouldn’t be here right now. Maybe he wouldn’t have wrecked Steve’s heart with that revelation. Or maybe the Winter Soldier would have proved better than Captain America and he’d be locked in the tank right now, oblivious to the world, oblivious to the life he once had and the way he, how did Pierce put it? Shaped the century? Yeah, that he did. Shaped the whole fucking century into a chaotic mess with tentacles, all the while held by these very tentacles in a death grip, and yet hanging on them like a puppet on its strings.

He knows that very last thought should spark some anger in his heart, but he’s well beyond that point. Or maybe he just hasn’t gotten anywhere close to it yet. And won’t get a chance. He doesn’t even know how much he cares anymore.

The imaginary Glock is still beside him, a faithful companion that can offer no solace.


	12. Chapter 12

He can barely hold a coherent thought when they finally come for him. He’s sure his days in the dark cell must have stretched into weeks, and weeks might have stretched into months, but he doesn’t really know. It makes no difference whatsoever, not at this point.

They come for him and his body trembles in a weird mixture of hatred and joy. Technically he knows they’re here to hurt him, to tear him apart piece by piece and wipe him and turn him into their compliant asset once again, but at least they’re human, real fucking people instead of hallucinated ghosts. They touch him and he feels the warmth of their hands against his skin, they talk to each other and he can hear their voices even if he’s too far gone to understand what they are saying, they surround him and he can smell something that isn’t his own sweat and piss and shit. They lead him out and he knows he should be fighting, but his muscles are slack and numb and he cries silently, tears streaming down his face like he knows no shame.

He tries not to let his legs give out while they lead him along a corridor (he’s pretty sure he’s seen this corridor before, but when?) but he ends up leaning on them more heavily than intended. It feels wrong, but somehow he can’t fight it just now, not yet at least.

They’re all back in the tiled room and he lets them strip him, then he’s just glad for the handle screwed to the wall, he’d surely collapse without it. The water hits him cold, but it’s been so long since he showered that he doesn’t really mind. It cleans his body and clears his mind a little bit, the fog receding and the sickening realization of where he really is what he must be being prepared for punching him so hard he doubles over.

“Behave, asset, or I’ll make everything hurt more than necessary.”

No, he thinks. You can’t. Not in any way that matters.

The hosing ends quicker than he expected and he suspects his mind might have switched off for a moment. Or maybe he just doesn’t remember how to function in a reality where time is important and measured in a reliable way. Time was always tricky for the Winter Soldier, after all. It was totally unpredictable and chaotic in the long run, what with the cryosleep of course, his handlers coming and going between his waking days, technology and procedures and protocols changing along with them, while he had to catch up immediately. But time also meant schedules and timetables, planned constraints he had to respect during missions.

Time is a blur now. Everything is a blur. His muscles feel weak and his head starts throbbing from the overstimulation he isn’t used to anymore. It takes an entire walk down another corridor and into another room to keep his eyes open for longer than a few seconds, it takes even longer not to squirm at the sensation of clean clothes brushing against his skin.

They strap him to a chair in what looks like an interrogation room. There’s a wide table in front of him and another chair. He sits there and waits, looking around the place, evaluating it, but he finds nothing interesting. He waits some more, trying not to think at all, because thinking and focusing seems to be a trigger for his headache.

A man enters the room some time later, neatly dressed and clean-shaven, pale as a goddamn cartoon ghost, a laptop in his arm. He puts the computer on the table and sits down, then looks straight at Bucky.

“Hello, welcome back, I’m glad to finally meet you, asset. Or are you the asset yet?”

Bucky doesn’t respond with anything but a glare. Besides, he’s not sure he could speak, focusing on the man’s words is hard enough as is. The man shrugs.

“Not very talkative, but then, I kind of expected that. The asset wasn’t supposed to be a charmer, you know, so at least we have that settled, thanks for not forcing me to elaborate on it. Now, do you know where you are?”

Bucky still keeps his mouth shut, but the man doesn’t look very happy about it.

“I asked you a question.”

Sure, but is there a point in answering at all? Bucky doubts it. He waits for– he doesn’t know what for. Maybe for his head to stop hurting. Maybe for the wipe and cryofreeze if he doesn’t get a chance to escape. Maybe for death itself, if he can ever be granted that much.

The man leers at him, sending shivers down Bucky’s spine.

“You surely know what this is?” He angles the laptop so that Bucky can see the screen and _oh shit_. “Well, I judge from the expression on your face that you’d forgotten about it for a while. I’m so glad to have helped you remember, though.”

Bucky looks up at him.

“I do not doubt you have an idea how this works. The program. The… thing. The wireless signal and such. The head technician could probably tell you more about it. Or could have, because he happens to be dead and I happen to be in charge of this pretty little friend of mine. And, mind you, I’m not sure how it works exactly, technically so to speak, so your cooperation would be appreciated. We both know you don’t want to die or you would’ve eaten a gun long ago. By the way, did anyone tell you you look awful with that beard? You’re a professional assassin, not a lumberjack. Make sure to look adequately the next time we meet.”

He falls silent for a while, then cocks his head. “So, where do you think you are?”

Bucky considers spitting in his face, but he’s not sure he’d hit the target, and missing is not an option.

“Okay, asset, I know for sure you can speak, you just need to be motivated. It’s like training a dog, you know? Oh, I guess you do. The dog either obeys or it’s punished, and trust me, they learn quickly that way. The punishment just has to be severe enough. So of course you don’t really care if I blow your brains out right here just because you refuse to talk to me, but you know who would care? Your dear friend Steven Grant Rogers. Whom you were supposed to kill on your last mission and didn’t. How do you think he’d react if he saw video footage of you getting killed for such a stupid reason? We’re just talking, asset, you don’t need to pretend it’s an important fight or a crusade or whatever else you think it is.”

Bucky presses his lips into a tight, unhappy line. The man has a point here. Steve would fucking rip his own heart out of his chest with his own fucking hands if he knew Bucky just gave up and purposely made his situation worse. He’d fucking lose his mind if he saw Bucky die like this.

Bucky looks around the place again, making a show of it. Considering.

“Interrogation room, possibly underground. Part of a big facility.” His voice sounds weird even to him, rough but surprisingly strong.

“That’s my boy!” The man claps his hands. „Location?”

„Unknown.”

„Why?”

„No characteristic features identified so far.”

“Okay, I’ll take it for sufficient answer. You may even be telling the truth. Any idea why you’re here?”

Bucky eyes the computer. “To answer your questions.”

“Nice try, but that’s not what I meant. Why are you even in this facility? Back with Hydra?”

“Because life’s a bitch.”

“Yours, maybe. But no, that’s not the correct answer. The truth is, you’re here because you failed. Because, as you can surely see for yourself, you really start malfunctioning without us and become lousy and start making mistakes. Piss-poor job for a renowned assassin, staying safe away from us. You need someone to make decisions for you in the long run, someone to think for you, because you suck at it when left on your own.”

He lets the words sink in and Bucky can’t deny the fact that there is some truth to them. His renewed captivity is his own fault. They sit in silence for several long minutes, neither so much as shifting in his chair.

“I think you know what happens next. I must warn you that there is no point fighting, and while we do have to feed you and tend to you a little before the wipe, we will be ready to incapacitate you quickly and painfully should you cause too much trouble. If it’s not enough for you, we can make sure your dear friend pays for the trouble you cause. We’re not really interested in shooting Captain America right now, but we can rearrange our plans for you if you ask for it nicely enough. But. If you choose to cooperate, I can promise not to send you against him. You won’t have to kill him. He won’t have to see you as the asset again. Win-win. Consider it. I’ll see you later, asset.”

He slams the laptop shut and walks out without another word.

Bucky is left alone for some time, his mind spinning, tears filling his eyes. If there was a way to end his life right now, right here, he’d do it, he’d fucking do it.

His chances are cut short when a woman enters the room, her face a mask of professionalism and something familiar, like maybe he has seen her before, but can’t really place her. Smooth olive skin, dark hair and eyes. He’d call her beautiful, but it feels wrong knowing she’s one of his captors. Maybe that’s the point, they’re playing nice now, so maybe it makes sense they send in pretty people. Or maybe they’re testing him, checking if he gives in to some sort of aesthetic pleasure, if he takes his time to appreciate anything. If they have more work to do, more things to beat out of him or maybe simply wipe once they have him in the chair.

He carefully arranges his face into neutral. It’s not difficult, because sure, he recognizes some values the Winter Soldier wasn’t even aware existed, but he still evaluates them as distractions.

“I’m not here to hurt you,” she says. She sets a tray on the table and his stomach goes crazy at the smell of the soup she brought. He didn’t realize how hungry he was until now. Well, that one’s more than just a distraction. He doesn’t say anything, just watches her move her chair closer to his.

“I can’t untie you, though.” There’s something apologetic in her voice and he nods. He’s been hand-fed before and she at least doesn’t seem to be aiming for humiliation, just getting her job done. He can cooperate for this, he needs to eat anyway and either he’ll do it the easy way or they’ll tube-feed him.

He opens his mouth and lets her feed him, swallowing the soup spoon by spoon, savoring the rich vegetable flavor and the warmth that spreads in his stomach. One time she accidentally slams the spoon against his teeth and most of its content spills, dripping down his chin. She quickly produces a napkin and wipes his face and he’s surprised at the gentle touch. He flinches only a little, then lets her clean the beard he’s grown during his stay in the dark cell.

He wants it to last. He wants to flip the table and run away, killing everyone in this goddamn facility on his way out. He looks at her instead, really at her, not through.

“Why are you here?”

“I can’t help you, if that’s where you’re trying to take this conversation. Just take what you get without asking for more. I can’t give it to you. Eat.”

He eats.

*

They move him to another room and run some tests on his arm. Mostly diagnostics; the thing remains inactive, though he does feel some feedback from time to time, nothing really painful considering his thresholds and points of reference, maybe a little nice in fact, as it assures him the arm’s not dead, just deactivated.

He lets it all happen, hoping to overhear something useful, but the technician doing most of the work barely looks at him, she’s only interested in his arm. She speaks once or twice to her helpers, revealing a foreign accent he’s not sure he can place with any more precision than the vague “eastern Europe” label, but it’s just short orders he doesn’t fully understand without knowing more about what they’re doing.

They all leave sooner than he expected, only to make room for another man, who comes to shave him.

Having someone so close to his face and throat is much worse than having the arm checked; Bucky finds himself altering between closing his eyes and just trying to survive this, and watching every twitch of the guy’s facial muscles, waiting for the moment he decides to hurt him.

The fact that he’s using an electric razor and not a real blade doesn’t help much. Bucky hates how quickly his heart picks up and how his breath keeps hitching throughout the process, acutely aware of his helplessness, though at least he’s not shaking. Truth be told, he subconsciously expects the man to derive some kind of sick pleasure from this, and is surprised to find no signs of it. He works efficiently, even if not very fast, and of course everything makes Bucky want to cringe and recoil, but at least his stomach doesn’t turn at the sight of a sadistic spark he’s seen light up in way too many people’s eyes.

It takes some time to rid him of the beard he’s grown in the cell and after the initial hyperawareness of every slightest drag of the razor over his skin and every little shift in pressure from the fingers holding him still fades, he zones out and the attention he’s getting becomes nothing more than background noise, not really registering in his mind anymore.

Then it’s all over, the man is gone and Bucky feels surprisingly, unnaturally exposed. This is stupid, because the beard wouldn’t help him in any way, and he’s only grown it because he had no access to any shaving tools, and then he’s already paraded naked in front of Hydra workers, and yet he’s become used to the beard and its relatively sudden disappearance just feels weird.

But then he’s locked in a holding cell and the days that follow are all the same, the boring routine of being fed three times a day and hosed down every second day, and barely talked to unless it’s direct orders, but still mostly cuffed even though his metal arm remains inactive.

And when one day the routine gets disrupted, he knows he’s fucked.

The girl who always fed him comes with some kind of smoothie instead of an actual meal. He knows it’s drugged, but with no real way to fight, he can keep his mouth shut only so long.

“Quit the show and open your mouth or I’ll make you,” she says. It’s not really a threat, she sounds mostly tired. He shakes his head.

“You know I can’t,” he answers through gritted teeth.

“Your choice.” She shrugs, puts the smoothie aside and produces what looks like a short chain. She makes a loop at one end and wraps it around his throat.

“Last chance to change your mind about this.”

He doesn’t respond.

The choke chain tightens around his throat, digging painfully into his skin, cutting off air. There is some comfort in the familiarity of the feeling and he holds still for a brief moment, just a few seconds before his body remembers its instincts he begins to struggle even though he knows there’s no way to escape the loop, it’s physically, anatomically impossible without loosening it, and then, without a limb to use, without any possibility to move any more beyond mindless thrashing, there’s no way to loosen the chain.

It works exactly as it should and when he reaches the point where the black corners of his vision obscure everything and he’s beginning to lose his grip on reality, the chain lets go.

He sags against the restraints holding him down and breathes despite the pain of it, drawing as deep breaths as he can. But before he can regain enough strength to resist, the girl prods his mouth open and, fuck, suddenly there’s an honest to god gag keeping his jaws apart, giving her easy access.

“Now drink it or I’ll have to tube-feed it to you. It’s quite tasty, actually, and while you’ll definitely save me a lot of trouble if you just cooperate, you’ll also make it easier on yourself. Can’t argue with reason.”

She’s right. He feels defeated and humiliated, but he understands he’s lost this game. There won’t be a chance to escape, there won’t be a chance to meet Steve and talk to him, not even a chance to tell him he can quit searching for Bucky. No chance to apologize for returning into his life and breaking it into pieces.

He lets the girl pour the smoothie into his throat. She’s gentle as ever, not spilling a drop, holding his jaw as he swallows the fruit-flavored drug.

It kicks in faster than he expected, a minute later there are people undoing the restraints and leading him out of the room. He can barely walk on his own at this point, mostly lets them drag him forward and pretends he can do anything more than lean on them, both arms swung around their necks and held in place by them, because he probably wouldn’t be able to really hold on to them on his own.

He barely registers the arrangement of the room they enter, his mind dulled, his entire body inching towards the state the metal arm has been in for weeks now, and it somehow feels right, a natural order of things, like decay starting in one point and slowly consuming more and more until there’s nothing left.

There will be nothing left of him soon enough.

They maneuver him into the chair and strap him down, and a tiny part of him yells he should be struggling against it, but he’s not sure why it would make any sense.

Where his mind is slow, his body catches up with the situation when his teeth close on a piece of rubber. He’s tasted more of these mouth guards than he can count; he vaguely remembers he even managed to bite through one, though he can’t tell when it was.

The technicians around him move a little chaotically, turning their heads toward something or someone Bucky can’t see from his spot in the chair.

“Sir?” One of them asks, his eyes never leaving that important thing. “Do you still wish to use the basic presets given in the Maintenance Protocol we recovered?”

“Yes.” It takes just one word spoken even for Bucky’s dulled mind to recognize the voice of the new, probably self-proclaimed director of Hydra. Or whoever he is. “Start from there and adjust whatever’s needed as you go.”

“Understood, sir. Turning the machine on right now.”

There’s a loud flip of a switch, several buttons pushed in quick succession and the headset starts whirring over him.

He closes his eyes in anticipation of the pain he knows and remembers all too well. The wipes erased his memories and hell knows what else, but they never made him forget the feeling of electricity running through his brain, taking his mind apart, slicing his very self into pieces, precise as a scalpel in a surgeon’s steady hand and yet wild and vicious, like claws of a tiger hacking at its prey.

The panels close over his head and face, the buzz of electricity hissing right into his ears, its touch withheld for a split second. Only a split second.

Then the world goes dark.


	13. Chapter 13

Steve doesn't let himself cry often, but when he finally does, it's with his whole body. It's not a matter of a few stray tears at this point, not something he can hide five minutes after. It's like he can't control himself anymore and is physically forced to let go; eyes watering against his will, muscles locked in place for a moment until they disobey his command and join the show. A one-man show, naturally, because he always makes sure not to let anyone witness how much it affects him, how bad and useless he feels, how much of a failure he continues to be.

Five more bases. They've found and searched five more bases and he dreads to look at the calendar and count the weeks they wasted, because they achieved absolutely nothing. A bunch of low-rank, 100% replaceable Hydra agents are dead, but what of it? What does that change?

After they spotted Bucky in DC he thought it'd be maybe three weeks until he showed up again. He hoped he could reach him or at least find a trail to follow, but there's been absolutely nothing. He feels helpless. Because with absolutely nothing to navigate by, he can do nothing. He can't even know if Bucky is in the country anymore; the guy could be in China just as well as Bali. Traveling around the world at random would be pointless. So is crying, and while Steve knows Sam would shake his head if he heard that, call it bullshit and explain all over about emotional release, but really, Steve can't bring himself to care less about his own emotional well-being, not while the core of it is the sickening fear for Bucky, hot in his heart and at times like this burning under his skin until he lets it take over for a few long moments.

At times like this his eyes are waterfalls for a minute, then they go dry and stay red-rimmed for way too long, but shaky breaths have to come through the mouth for much longer, his whole body trembling, pathetic little noises escaping his throat until he gags on them.

And when it all finally stops and the silent sobs fade into something more like actual breathing, he feels none of the release, he's not calmer and certainly not cleaner, he's just drained and dirty, shamed and hopeless and maybe a little dead inside.

He collapses on the mattress, wraps his arms around his pillow and just lies there, oblivious to the passing time, his head mostly empty and his heart still squeezed and aching.

It's almost like he's little and sick again, only back then it used to be his body dulling his thoughts, his struggle purely physical, and now the physical aspect is derivative of the emotional. He eventually falls asleep and though he has no nightmares, he wakes up tired and it takes him a while to shake off the drowsiness and notice the evening shadows creeping into his bedroom. He gets up, splashes his face with cold water and goes to the kitchen to find some food.

He’s not really hungry, but it gives him something to do with his hands. He’s not sure what he’s making at first, just pulling random things from the fridge and setting them on the counter seems hard enough, deciding what to turn them into is almost impossible.

He ends up with a huge plate of pancakes, more than even he can eat in one sitting. He briefly considers inviting someone, but the very thought of company makes him want to curl into a ball and bury himself under the thickest blanket he can find, so he forces down a few pancakes and _carefully arranges his face into a grimace of disgust._

_“This is the worst pancake I’ve ever had.”_

_“Still a far cry from the omelet you made last week.” Bucky winks at him and munches on one of the pancakes he just made._

_“That was an omelet? Thanks for letting me know.”_

_“I’m only calling_ this _a pancake because I’m not rude.”_

_“Of course.” Bucky doesn’t even bat an eye. “But you know, pal, if you don’t like these_ pancakes _, you don’t have to eat them. There’ll be more for me if you wanna stop torturing yourself like this.”_

_“I’m just saving you from the pain of eating all of this, you’d definitely get sick.”_

Steve almost laughs at himself, because, ironically, he was the one who got sick, proving the pancakes weren’t that good. The ones he’s just made, though, are much better.

He makes himself eat another one and finds himself wishing he could get drunk.

Instead, for the hundredth time this week, he tries to draw, but his hand must have forgotten how, because the pencils feel awkward n his grip and every line seems off, not exactly the shape he wanted it to be, though there was a time he hardly ever experienced this kind of frustration, just kept sketching for the sake of it, mindlessly filling pages with portraits, landscapes, with whatever was making his heart heavier or lighter at the time.

These days though, he can’t seem to get any of it right. He’s tried sketching people, animals, buildings, nature, virtually everything, and he just can’t. He has the image in his head, but somehow finds no way to render it into a drawing, and do it justice. He’s given up on drawing his friends, on Peggy, on the Howlies, even on the Avengers. He’s tried to draw Bucky, but his hand refuses to cooperate, distorting proportions, messing the shading and making Bucky completely unrecognizable. That is, and Steve’s heart hurts every time he thinks about it, unless he’s drawing the Winter Soldier, a brown halo of windswept hair, mask and goggles and rifles and all. For some reason he’s perfectly able to recreate the geometry of the mask or the fine shapes of an M4. But the face of his best friend, the face that’s engraved in his mind he actually drew it from memory a few years ago, eludes him today, and as he fruitlessly chases the truth with the careful strokes of the pencil on paper, another day passes mostly uneventfully.

And it’s day after day after day, the same pattern, nothing really changing, nothing important happening. The multilingual files they recovered are mostly useless for their purpose. Most of them describe long finished HYDRA projects, actions, assassinations or studies, but only three mention the Winter Soldier, and briefly, mostly from the planning stage of the project, before Bucky was captured or maybe before some part of his training (and Steve shudders at that word) was changed, improved in the sick way of HYDRA. The schematics of the arm were most interesting for Tony; he even explained as much as he could to Steve, and the whole lecture was both fascinating and heartbreaking, but couldn’t change the fact that they have no idea if any of this still applies.

It’s midnight and he’s trying to sketch again, thinking if he puts the blue coat in front of his eyes, then maybe he can somehow cheat, bypass bad luck, recover the memory he’d like to change into newfound truth and actually do it.

He manages half of the goal, draws a silhouette of a man dressed in Bucky’s Commando clothes. He fails with the face, too many attempts leaving inerasable marks on the paper and forcing him to cover Bucky’s head with the Winter Soldier’s mask and goggles. He hates it, but if he can somehow finish a single damn drawing, then he wants to, he needs to, no matter how much it hurts. He gives Bucky short hair by way of apology and slams the sketchbook shut, feeling emotionally drained, but in a strange way that makes his body scream for some kind of activity.

He decides to go to the gym and work out, but somehow ends up sitting on the couch, staring into the void, thinking about everything and nothing at the same time, until he realizes he’s been sitting like this for two hours.

He realizes he should make some kind of decision and move, either to the elevator and down to the gym, as he initially planned, or somewhere else. He should probably take a shower. He can’t, the whole idea of tearing his existence from the weird stillness of a stretching moment seems overwhelming and a little pointless.

He falls asleep on the couch just after dawn.

He wakes up to a soft beep from the ceiling, a polite way of JARVIS interrupting without startling him with sudden speech, unannounced by a creak of the floor or the sound of door pushed open. A new setting that he’s mostly ashamed of, but he keeps it secret, knowing it would bother his friends.

“JARVIS?” he asks, rubbing his eyes. “What is it?”

“Not an emergency, sir. You promised Mr. Wilson to visit his New York group at the VA today, so if you don’t want to be late, you should start getting ready to leave. If not, I can inform Mr. Wilson that you won’t be coming.”

Dammit, he forgot about the VA. “Of course I’m coming. How long until I have to leave?”

“Half an hour, sir.”

“Okay, thank you, JARVIS.”

“Anytime, sir.”

Half an hour is enough. He takes a shower, grabs a quick breakfast and leaves. He arrives 5 minutes early, just in time to run into Sam in the hallway.

“Steve! Good to see you, man!” Sam pulls him in for a quick bear hug, slamming his hand on Steve’s back.

“You too, Sam.”

“How’re you doing? Any news on Barnes?”

Steve shakes his head. “Nothing.”

“He knows how to hide, huh?”

“Yeah, definitely. How’s work here in New York?”

Sam actually thinks about the answer. Not long, because while he’s always quick to laugh and joke, he’s also the kind of person that really thinks about things and yet seems to have a reasonably quick answer to every question.

“Satisfying. Wouldn’t trade it for full-time avenging, and won’t, as long as I have a say in it.”

“I’m glad to hear that,” Steve replies, and he really is. He still feels a little guilty – although grateful beyond words – for dragging Sam into the whole Avengers business.

“Yeah. Thanks for coming to visit. It means a lot to the group.”

“You told them beforehand?”

“Sometimes even happy surprises aren’t exactly happy. I told them you might be here today if you manage to clear your schedule.”

“Well, I managed.” Steve gives Sam a wide grin. “And trust me, the visit means just as much to me.”

“You can tell them yourself.”

He doesn’t. He doesn’t say anything throughout the entire session, not a word apart from a simple greeting, because for some reason his head is empty and he has no idea what to say. He doesn’t really feel like exposing even the tiniest part of his thoughts to anyone right now, because it would end up in a catastrophe.

He listens, though, listens intently, because every word spoken by the members of this group sounds like wisdom and, he’s sure of it, is more important than anything he could come up with right now.

Some of the stories he hears during the session ring so true his heartrate picks up a little.

“I used to be quite a talented musician, you know? Not famous, I didn’t have a band or anything, I just good at it. I played the guitar and sang at parties; all my friends loved it. I could get drunk to the point of not remembering anything the next day and I still wouldn’t hit a false note. Not once. I don’t mean to brag or anything, it’s just how it is. Or was.  Because three days ago I saw a friend.  And she has a guitar at her place, but she can’t play it, the thing belongs to her girlfriend. But she said I could play if I felt like it. So I tried. I tried three times to play her favorite song but I never made it past the chorus. I don’t even know why, I knew the chords and all, but somehow I couldn’t play it. It made me feel awful, like I couldn’t give anything to other people that wasn’t just problems. But.” The man looks at Sam, visibly hesitating, and Steve can see Sam give him the tiniest encouraging nod, barely visible, but enough for him to continue. “But every time I think I’m a waste of space, I can see her face when she heard it, offended and wounded and deeply sad. And it hit me real hard, I understood I was doing damage by wanting not to mess up, trying to live up to some apparently impossible standard I set for myself. So now even when I doubt it, I make myself remember that no matter what there’s someone who counts on me in some way, even if it’s just to play the first chords of a song, and that alone is proof enough that I cannot be a total waste. Because even if I think otherwise, that person knows better, and I trust their judgement more than mine in such matters. So I build on that. And if any of you ever feels like you’re worth nothing, I want to tell you that you’re not. Because there’s this one crazy old vet who likes to talk nonsense most of the time, though some days he manages to say something sensible, and he’s grateful for you being here and participating in the sense and the nonsense.”

Others are simply inspiring.

“There’s this saying that goes, if you love someone, you’ve gotta let them go. Set them free. I’ve been thinking about it lately, because I believed it my whole life, ever since my sister recited it to me as we buried our cat when we were children. Ten years later I buried her and let her go, because that was what she taught me. I thought maybe she’d’ve been happy, knowing I didn’t brood, didn’t spiral down after her death, just carried on with my life. And then I joined the army, and I spent so much time setting people I didn’t even know free in Afghanistan that in the end there was only one person left that I could let go of. And I tried, I really tried to let go, and after I don’t know how long I nearly did. But the truth is, you can’t. You gotta hold on to yourself for as long as you can, you gotta hold on tight no matter how hard it is or how much it hurts, even if you have doubts, because in the end that’s all you have, in the end it’s just you and yourself you’re gonna live with. And that’s one thing you can’t afford to lose.”

And some outright bring a smile to his lips, despite everything.

“I took a passenger yesterday. Doesn’t sound like a big deal, drive with someone else in the car, but it’s different if the previous time all of your passengers were shot dead and you weren’t. But I just couldn’t ignore a young hitchhiker, she reminded me of my little sister and I thought, damn, what can happen? Nobody’s gonna shoot at us and if I don’t give her a ride, someone else will, and who knows what else they’d do to her. And of course I almost panicked like ten times, but in the end I did it, I know she got where she wanted safe and sound, and she didn’t mind stopping for no reason for a few times.”

The session’s over way too soon and Steve’s left with a lot of thoughts to process.

“That was quite a session, Sam.”

“Looks like the folks decided to talk about really special things for you.”

“I’m sorry I wasn’t as active as they probably expected. I’ll make up for it the next time I visit.”

“Chill, man, it’s okay. The musician who spoke today? He hardly said a word for a month after I took over the group. Nobody minds your silence. They know you listened. That’s more than enough.”

The sincerity of it makes Steve blush internally, more so because he understands and relates to this point of view. He doesn’t know what to say, but fortunately he doesn’t have to say anything before Sam veers away from the threat of emotional heart-to-hearts.

“By the way, I’m starving, but luckily they sell great burgers just around the corner. Wanna join?”

“Sure, why not.” Steve shrugs, not quite sure if he’s in any mood for burgers, but he figures he might give it a try, have a chat with Sam. He hasn’t seen him much lately and while he was sure he doesn’t want to talk to anyone, it now turns out he may need some contact with other people more than he thought.

They’re on their way to the exit when a petite woman approaches them. Steve half-expects her to either fangirl over him or throw curses, but she only halts, her face a blank mask, and looks at him for a half-second before speaking.

“I have a message for you, Captain.” She produces an envelope and all Steve’s instincts start screaming in alarm, but he doesn’t move. Just stares back at her. “It’s not a bomb, won’t explode or anything. Just a message.”

Steve is vaguely aware of the way Sam grows tense beside him, his stance changing, his entire body screaming _I’m ready to take whatever action is necessary and nobody wants to stand in my way right now_ but he waits, weighing the situation. Steve shoots him a sideways glance, tips his head right and then left and right again, because he knows it all looks quite weird and shitty, but _hold on, Sam, I’ll handle it_.

Sam waits.

“Excuse me, m’am, but who is this message from?” Steve asks, frowning, keeping a calm mask, although he can already feel the rush of adrenaline, his brain already supplying options: possible ways out, things he can use as impromptu weapons, ways to minimize explosion damage, ways to overpower the woman if the envelope really is a key to explosion, ways to incapacitate her if she has a remote switch hidden somewhere else. He’s ready, but he doesn’t move yet.

“Just your… friends. I swear you wouldn’t want to miss it.” She smiles, just a brief stretch of lips, but the power and some odd kind of sincerity radiating from it lock Steve’s muscles in place. “Captain.” She nods.

Steve is suddenly left with the envelope in his hand, not sure if he even took it, and the woman is gone. Sam is staring at him with visible concern.

“What the hell was that?”

“You’re asking like I know.”

“You’re not gonna open it right here, are you?”

“Of course I am.”

Somehow he believes, no, he knows it really isn’t any kind of bomb or threat to the public. He has no idea how, but he does, and he can feel his heart literally slamming against his ribs, probably on the verge of exploding. There’s no bomb, so maybe his heart will make up for it.

He tears the envelope open. There’s a neatly folded sheet of paper inside, and he unfolds it to find a neatly handwritten letter.

It reads:

_Captain,_

_You may not know us personally, but you know who we are. We believe we may have come into possession of one of your belongings and would like to kindly express are willingness to return it to its rightful owner. We are sure you will be happy to have it back, so please, come and claim it at your earliest convenience. Hurry is not needed, of course, but you may find it greatly appreciated._

_You will find the exact location of its current whereabouts if you turn the page._

_Hail HYDRA!_

And indeed, there are coordinates on the other page, and somehow they strike him as vaguely familiar, as if he’s seen these exact numbers in this exact order before.

“Sam, I’m sorry, but I’m afraid the burgers have to wait.”


	14. Chapter 14

“Are you sure, Cap?” Tony frowns at the letter. “This looks even worse than the last one. If it’s a trap, they’re not even trying to disguise it.”

“Which is why I think it’s not one.”

“Have you lost your mind? They don’t even need to set up any traps and plan complicated operations, all they have to do is suggest something is about your Manchurian Candidate boyfriend and you go wherever they want you to. I’m sorry, but this is nuts.”

“Tony, I know what it looks like, but I’m not taking any chances here. If Bucky’s there, if they hurt him, if—okay, look, you don’t have to go with me, just give me a jet or something.”

“You’re banned from taking my jets as you please since your last trip to Kansas. You wanna lose your life in a stupid way, fine, I don’t care, but I’ll have nothing to do with it.”

“Tony, listen to me--”

“No, you listen. We’ve been to Kansas, to that exact location, remember? Looking for a dead man. That place is a fake graveyard, plus a ruined base that you had the pleasure to visit. Correct me if I’m wrong. No? Great. Then, Steve, what the hell?”

“I need to make sure.”

“Of what? That HYDRA wouldn’t want to lose their precious weapon, much less give it away just like that? That there’s approximately zero chance any part of that base is running and holding the Winter Soldier right now?”

“I have to know if I can do something useful this time. If there’s the slimmest chance of saving Bucky in this scenario. I said you don’t have to go with me and I meant it.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, I’m not letting you run into a HYDRA trap just like that. You insist on going, okay, stopping you would be pointless anyway. You can go but you need backup. The problem is, we don’t have as much backup as we need. Natasha’s off the grid for now, busy with her own stuff, to be honest I haven’t heard from anyone other than you and Sam for at least a few weeks. So it’s probably just the three of us, the great me, Capsicle and the Flamingo, who by the way is not a flamingo anymore.”

“Tony.”

“No.”

“If it were your friend—”

“He’s the opposite of my friend, Cap.” Tony’s voice drops to an unusual quiet, and it shuts Steve up as well.

They stay facing each other in silence, Steve trying to get a read on Tony, trying to guess what’s exactly on his mind and if it has to do with what they both know was one of Bucky’s missions, thanks for the intel, Natasha, you rock.

Tony finally looks away, sighs like the weight of the whole world was just placed on his shoulders.

“I’m gonna regret this.”

“What’s that mean, Tony?”

“Pack your suitcase, Cap, before I change my mind.”

Steve doesn’t need to be told twice.

*

He remembers nothing of the flight. While it lasts, it seems endless, time stretching and all, but then they’re there, landing just a few miles from the abandoned base. From there they go on foot, Steve in the lead, Sam and Tony behind. Nobody says a word and Steve is glad for the silence; he’s not sure he’d stand any nonsense chatter right now.

His head is empty, blank like right before an exam you studied for real hard but still seem to know nothing.

They walk. They creep to the edge of the forest, stopping when Steve raises his hand

The place is somehow gloomier than the last time; the vast emptiness as silent as can be, not a bird singing in the nearby woods, not a gust of wind rustling the leaves, just the eerie silence ringing in Steve’s ears until Tony clears his throat.

“You ready, Cap?” he asks

“You okay?” Sam’s voice is quieter but it almost makes a smile tug at Steve’s lips.

“Yeah,” he throws the collective answer without turning his head. “Stick to the plan.”

They’re out in the open, moving with caution and yet an easiness fueled by years of field experience and mutual trust. Steve’s heart already feels lighter as long as they’re in action, taking one step at a time, waiting and hoping for everything and nothing at the same time.

He can hardly believe it but they do reach the door undisturbed. Sam doesn’t say a word but Steve can see suspicion etched in his face, the tell-tale way he narrows his eyes, the tension in his shoulders. Neither says a word, though, Steve nods in reassurance and determination and then he bursts through the door.

He stops as soon as he’s in, disbelief locking his legs in place, his hands tightening on the straps of his shield.

The lights are on. The air inside is quite fresh, the smell of stale blankets and debris gone. The floor is clean enough to show a huge white arrow painted right in front of Steve.

“Holy shit.” He can hear Tony behind him. “JARVIS? If you got anything interesting you’d like to share, now is the time. Anything will do, buddy.”

“I guess they knew I was coming immediately.”

Sam shifts uncomfortably on Steve’s right. “Then where are they?”

“I’ve been asking myself for a while now.”

Steve doesn’t say another word, only makes himself move, following the arrow. It turns out there’s more than one; an entire path leading him to a lower level he’ sure he hasn’t visited before. It’s much cooler here than above, the air smells different, though he can’t put his finger on the nature of this difference. It’s a little confusing.

They follow a long, narrow corridor, one by one, weapons ready, but nobody – and nothing – stands in their way. No secret traps, no Hydra agents, not even barred passages or locked doors, or even flickering lights. Steve can feel cold sweat covering his body with every step. It all feels terribly, terribly wrong.

“Cap, you seen the Lord of the Rings?” asks Tony.

“What?”

“I asked if you—“

“I heard you. I’m asking, what does this have to do with anything?”

“Doesn’t this damn place look a little like Moria to you?”

“Stark.” Sam’s voice is low, threatening. “Can you shut the hell up?”

“What? The creepy crypt ain’t creepy to you?”

“You ruin the creepy with your endless nonsense.”

“Oh, fine. We’ll see about that.”

Steve’s mind somehow switches off, blocking the follow-up of their chatter. Maybe the absurd has become a little too absurd even for him. Maybe he can’t stand the distraction anymore. Maybe some part of him just _knows_.

And then they’re there. A vast space of a circular chamber stretching in front of them, lit by old medical lamps, empty but for a display case at the very center, on a rich catafalque covered with black satin. And right behind, as if patiently waiting its turn to get noticed, a heart monitor beeps weakly, an IV stand pressed against it, last drops of its contents dripping slowly into the body caged behind the glass lid. The man at the center of it is motionless, dressed in the Winter Soldier’s tac suit, the vest tight across his chest, barely leaving room for breathing, the mask covering his face, long brown hair a greasy halo around his head.

The sight is horrible, although it bears a certain morbid beauty that even Steve cannot deny. He stands enchanted for a second, taking it in, acknowledging as true, and then he’s by Bucky’s side, all senses on alert. It’s all he’s been hoping for: Bucky right in front of him in one piece. It’s the worst of his nightmares come true at the same time because _is he even alive?_

He reaches for the lid.

“Hey, Cap. It won’t explode, right?”

Steve freezes, his hands already flat on the surface of the coffin. “Move away and pray it doesn’t. And if it does, get out of here as fast as you can and don’t look back; there won’t be enough left of me to take home anyway.”

“Shut up, Steve, I didn’t sign up for a self-sacrifice bullshit speech. Get Snow White and we’re out.”

The lid gives way almost too easily, slides off the coffin as if there was no friction at all between the two parts. It slams against the floor with a loud noise but, surprisingly, doesn’t shatter. _Reinforced_ , crosses Steve’s mind, and he’d laugh at how absurd it is, but he’s already leaning over Bucky, eyes glued to his chest until he sees it, the slightest movement, but definitely a breath taken, precious oxygen still filling his lungs, red blood running through his veins, a spark of life still burning in him.

Sam and Tony are immediately next to him.

“What’s in the IV?” Sam asks, then examines the bag, because of course Steve has no idea, and neither does Stark. “Shit, it’s not labeled.”

“Should I remove it?”

“No. Can’t be poison if he’s alive, or if it is, they already pumped him full of it. Let’s just get him outta here.”

Steve moves to gather Bucky into his arms but Tony taps him on the shoulder.

“Not like that, for fuck’s sake, Cap! Here.” He produces a rod, twists one of its ends and then, suddenly, he’s offering an actual stretcher.

And then the four of them somehow reaches the jet. Steve remembers none of it, one minute he’s still in the undergrounds of the abandoned base, and then the next thing he knows is the sound of the engines in his ears, the gentle movement of Bucky’s chest under his hand and the solid, professional presence of Sam performing a quick check-up of Bucky’s vitals.

They remove the mask and Steve has to look at Sam to confirm he didn’t make it up. Maybe he’s just tired and stressed and simply hallucinating. Maybe it’s not happening for real.

“The hell this time?”

So, shit, Sam can see it too.

Steve bends over and takes the folded piece of paper stuffed into Bucky’s mouth, frowning. He can feel Sam’s gaze following his every move.

He unfolds it carefully, every fiber of his body already ringing an alarm. Air suddenly won’t go into his lungs, his mind going into overdrive. A flash drive falls on the floor, free from its paper cage, but Steve has eyes only for the surprisingly neat handwriting, almost a fucking _cursive_ , goddamn penmanship at its finest.

It reads:

_Dear Captain,_

_Your reputation as a good man and a man of honor reached so far it has penetrated the cozy tentacle shield we built around us. You, of all the people on this planet, would know the value of love and mercy. We appreciate it and thus return to you what deserves to stay with you for however long you choose to keep it._

_Here is all that is left of your former friend, James Barnes. An error in recalibration of an ancient apparatus resulted in a faulty wipe of the Winer Soldier’s mind. He seems to have lost whatever was still left of it and remains unresponsive. However, we felt it would be unfair of us to exert an act of mercy on our own; we leave that honor to you._

_You are most welcome to keep him but we humbly suggest that you consider taking pity on him. Any man respecting what either James Barnes or the Winter Soldier stood for wouldn’t let this plant-like vegetation last longer than necessary. He’s already waited long enough for you to find him (no need to thank for the IV keeping him alive, the pleasure is ours)._

_Should you choose to take pity on your old friend, we encourage you to use the program provided. It was kept safe and secret but since we won’t need it anymore, you have been granted a lifelong access to the full version of the Emergency Switch._

_Sincerely,_  
…  
Hail HYDRA!


	15. Chapter 15

Everything happens fast after that; the images of Stark’s med team waiting for them on the rooftop of the Stark Tower, the haunting sight of Bucky’s unresponsive face, Sam’s offended snort when the head doctor suggests he should hand his newest patient over to them and go get a coffee or something, the way Tony’s eyes go wide when he sees the flash drive and learns its contents; all of it blends into a string of blurry memories Steve can’t really tell apart.

He knows people talk to him but none of it really registers in his mind. There’s only one thought he can hold on to right now, the only thing that counts, and it’s that, despite everything, Bucky’s still alive. Sure, he’s unconscious and God only knows in what state, but there are now trustworthy doctors instead of sadistic technicians taking care of him. And yes, he’s got some kind of kill switch planted somewhere in his body, as if the metal arm wasn’t enough already, but it hasn’t been activated, and Steve keeps this drive safer than the last one he was trusted with. He lets himself focus on the one good thing right now and put off all worries. They’ll catch up soon enough, but for now all that counts is that Bucky is here.

Steve lets the scarce tears fall from his eyes shamelessly, but there’s no way he’s leaving Bucky’s side after all they’ve endured, both together and apart.

“Steve?” Sam’s voice shakes him back into presence. “I know it’s all hard at the moment but we need to talk. About Bucky.”

“What’s wrong?”

“So damn optimistic, aren’t you? But yeah, I must warn you you may not like all I’m about to say.”

“How bad is it, then?”

“No way to tell just yet, but given the circumstances, I’m afraid an induced coma may be the safest choice right now.”

“Are you kidding me? Hasn’t he had enough?”

“Steve, I know. I agree with you. It’s a morally grey scenario, I totally agree with that. But we don’t know anything about the drive you’re hiding in your pocket, the potential other triggers, we don’t know enough about his condition. You said they tried to wipe him again, right?” He waits for Steve to nod. “So we don’t really know what to expect if we try to wake him. But I need your consent before we give ourselves a little head start over whatever Hydra did to him, okay?”

“You’re making it sound like we’d do him a favor keeping him under, Sam.”

“No, we wouldn’t. I personally doubt it would make much difference to him. But we might do Hydra a favor if we act on spot and don’t think our choices through. They let you have him with no resistance, just like that, a little Easter egg-hunting was all they arranged. The question why remains unanswered.”

Steve shifts uncomfortably because he can’t argue with that. Sam’s right. Hydra suddenly giving up on the Winter Soldier is suspicious, and even if they damaged his brain instead of wiping his memories, why would they still call Captain America and let him claim his friend? Nothing about it adds up.

Also, how has he forgotten all reason? He’s got Bucky back, close enough to touch, and has his own brain evaporated? His first and foremost duty now is to keep Bucky safe from Hydra, and if the decision is hard to make, Steve will grit his teeth and clench his fists and deal with it, because he owes it to Buck.

“All right.” He nods, and some of the newfound determination must show on his face because Sam smiles back, a confident reassuring smile that means he’ll also do whatever he can to get them all out of this shit fast and smooth.

“Thank you, Steve.”

“No, thank you, Sam. For everything.”

Sam shakes his head. “You’ll thank me in an hour. I’m making pancakes for dinner.”

“ _The_ pancakes?”

“Is this an insult?”

“Call it a challenge.”

“Accepted.” And Sam leaves without another word.

Before Steve knows, Stark’s doctors are leaving too. Bucky’s hooked up to an IV, a ventilator and a monitor, intubated, catheterized, and, to Steve’s greatest surprise, wearing what must be a hospital gown.

Steve nods his way through a reminder of basic hygiene rules around Bucky and the door closes behind the head doctor.

After that he’s – _they’re_ – left alone, and Steve can finally take a moment to look at Bucky, focus on his face, not the imminent danger. Right now, in this very moment, in this very place, they’re safe, as safe as they can be under the circumstances they’ve got to work with, and the realization makes Steve a little dizzy, a lump rising in his throat, his chest swelling with the feeling of some long-lost part of his very self slotting back into place.

He sits down and gently lays a hand on Bucky’s shoulder, making the movement slow, savoring it like a sacred ritual performed in front of an ancient goddess, careful not to ruin anything, not to inflict too much pressure too quickly. He runs his thumb along Bucky’s collarbone in a smooth, slow, repetitive motion that soothes his anxiety a little bit.

“Hey, Buck,” he starts, and is surprised at how hard he finds it to speak, his voice faltering and husky.  “I don’t know if you can hear me, but I just wanted to tell you that you’re safe.”

He wants to promise he’ll never let this happen again, but bites back on his words before they spill unwanted. The last time he swore he wouldn’t let Hydra recapture Bucky… well, this will probably never stop haunting his mind, so he makes himself think about something else.

It reminds him of the previous time he rescued Bucky from Hydra, a thousand years ago, it seems, in an alternate universe, because how else could God be so cruel as to bring so much pain upon one good man?

*

“You can sleep now, Buck.” Steve walks back into their tent and sits down. “They won’t say another word.”

“You didn’t have to.” Buck’s voice is quiet and sounds a little strained to Steve’s ears. It makes his heart ache even more, it makes him want to bring back to life every Hydra agent he killed during his rescue mission and kill them all over again, slower and more painfully.

“They were too loud anyway.”

“That’s not what I—nevermind.”

“What?” Steve looks at him but in the near darkness of the night he can barely make out the shapes of anything in the tent, even with the dim light of the little torch hanging over their heads.

“Said nothin’. Go to sleep, Rogers, I sure want to.”

“Okay.” He decides not to push, buries himself under his blanket and turns off the light. “Good night, Bucky.”

“’Night, Stevie,” comes the reply, but it sounds all wrong.

Steve lies awake long enough to make sure Bucky does fall asleep, because even if he’s a little off, a little on edge and a little damaged, he’s still Bucky and Steve quickly learns the new breathing pattern to listen for, somehow more tense than it used to be but definitely still Buck’s sleeping pattern. He lets the comforting sound, actual proof of Bucky’s presence, lull him to sleep too.

He wakes up in what must be the middle of the night, with the darkness still obscuring the world, the air chilly, the camp silent. Bucky’s still asleep, the sounds of his breath only silenced by the whisper of the wind in the trees. It takes Steve a while to realize they’re touching, and he nearly panics, because Bucky has been very careful to avoid any unnecessary physical contact these past days, and now Steve’s hand is somehow resting on his shoulder, even though Steve doesn’t remember putting it there, dammit, he didn’t want to do anything like that without Buck’s direct permission.

And yet Bucky’s still sound asleep, a miracle in itself that he hasn’t had a nightmare yet. Steve decides to push his luck then and doesn’t withdraw his hand, mostly for fear of waking Bucky, but also a little because he simply likes it, enjoys the calmness of the contact. He lets his mind focus on that one point, feeling the slight movements accompanying each breath, letting the warmth of Bucky’s skin be the only good thing in the world for a while, the only thing worth his attention, the only reason for his crazy mission and the final reward for all of the effort.

In this very moment he doesn’t need anything else.

*

He wakes up and the first thing he knows is that his back hurts. It takes him a while to realize he fell asleep leaning against the hospital bed, his hand still on Bucky’s shoulder. The heart rate monitor is silent, which is weird, because Bucky’s definitely alive, his breathing steady, controlled by the ventilator, and his heart is beating calmly.

Steve sits up, stretches, then digs balled fists into the muscles on his back to ease out some of the tension. Meanwhile, he looks around the room, checking if anything’s changed. The bright lights are dimmed, enough to see and yet to sleep if need be, and there’s a plate full of pancakes and a thermal mug sitting on the nightstand, which has been moved to the far end of the room.

He smiles at the sight, sending warm thoughts Sam’s way.

When he walks up to the nightstand, he finds a note attached:

_Please eat here, Steve, for hygiene reasons or something, also because my med team are already mad at me for allowing this at all. – Tony_

The pancakes are already cold but delicious as only Sam’s pancakes can be. He eats them all, suddenly aware of how hungry he is, washes it down with warm tea and resumes his watch over the unconscious Bucky.

“I hope they’re feeding you well through that catheter. You’ll love Sam’s pancakes, though.”  

He looks at all the medical machinery around, at points it connects with Bucky’s body, like numerous arms wrapping him in a tight embrace. And suddenly it’s all too much, the stress finally catching up with him, his guard let down now that he’s virtually alone, and he cries silently, first shy tears slowly caressing his cheeks like a lover’s fingers.

He doesn’t let a sound escape him even as tears start coming in a salty flood, swelling in his eyes until he doesn’t even try to blink them away, just buries his face in his hands and sobs silently. The images from the Hydra file he got from Natasha reemerge, mixing with the current sight of Bucky, and it makes Steve’s skin crawl, makes him want to scratch himself raw because he can’t deny the resemblance, can’t stop his head from spinning and hot tears from falling.

He’s failed Bucky twice now, and the struggle is far from over. If Hydra discarded him because of some brain damage, it must have been severe, and it dawns on Steve that he may in fact never wake up, or even if he does, he may be too far gone. Steve knows he can never make up for his failures but he’d like to at least try, to apologize, to look at Bucky and see painless recognition in his eyes.

He leans forward but this time doesn’t dare touch his friend, feeling unworthy, filthy, feeling like his presence is additional poison, as if Bucky hasn’t had enough of Hydra’s poison pumped into him already. He rests his forehead against the mattress, careful not to let his tears soak it, and cries, gasping for air.

Right now, he knows he’ll never dare ask Bucky’s forgiveness; he just wants him to come back, in whatever state he can, and let Steve take care of him, because he fucking owes him that, and it’s the least he can do.

*

Whether it’s the hottest summer or the coldest winter in his life, Steve isn’t sure. All he knows is that his lungs feel shrunken and collapsed, and it’s hard to draw a single breath. His body is burning hot, and yet the sweat covering his head and back feels cold.

He can hear the door shutting, the key turning in the lock, and realizes his ma has just left for work. She never says goodbye these days but Steve doesn’t mind; he understands it would only make it harder for her to leave, and leave she has to.

He spends most of the day walking the thin line between feverish lucidity and exhausting sleep, drifting in and out, too weak to even think. It’s probably the worst he’s felt in his life because he doesn’t even register when Bucky comes to visit, he just kind of appears next to his bed, crouching and putting his elbows on the mattress, his face on the same level with Steve’s.

“Hey, pal, taken your meds yet?”

Steve stares at him for a while, processing the question, then slowly shakes his head. Bucky makes an unhappy noise, fetches Steve’s meds.

“Here.”

Steve obediently takes his meds, then flops back on his pillow. He can feel Bucky’s eyes on him, and doesn’t need to look back at him to know he’d see concern etched in his face.

Then suddenly Bucky’s sitting next to him with a hand on Steve’s forehead. Later he’s only perched on the edge of the mattress, trying to force some tea or food into Steve – doesn’t really matter which, because Steve knows he wouldn’t keep it down.

It takes a few similar incidents until he realizes he just keeps passing out.

It seems to calm a little in the early morning; it’s still dark outside and Steve finds he’s awfully thirsty, but somehow Bucky’s asleep right next to him, so he doesn’t move, just focuses on breathing again, even though it’s hard when his mouth feels dry and parched. It’s worth it since Bucky rarely sleeps well when Steve gets sick, Steve is sure the last night was completely sleepless for him, so he’ll allow his friend some well-deserved respite.

He thinks he falls asleep this time instead of passing out but can’t be sure.

When he wakes again, he’s seized by a coughing fit, and he’s certain he’s going to spit his lungs out until someone grabs him by the shoulders and pulls him upright, then sits behind him. Steve doesn’t even protest, just leans against Bucky and tries to take a breath between coughing.

He knows Bucky keeps uttering comforting nonsense but he can’t focus on the words; they wouldn’t really matter anyway. Steve knows the meaning behind them and he does his best to hold onto it. He tries to live, taking one second at a time, because anything else would be too demanding, too long a road, too much an effort, too far to reach. Cough. Breath. Cough. Bucky’s chest against his back. Cough. Breath. Cough. Breath. Bucky’s voice. Cough. Breath. Breath? Cough and cough and cough.

And then, finally, a slightly deeper breath.

*

Morning comes in the company of an eccentric billionaire, whose eyes betray a mixture of enthusiasm and anxiety. He smells of coffee and probably isn’t drinking one right now only to avoid trouble with his medical personnel.

“Morning’, Cap.”

“Hey, Tony. You slept at all?”

“How much caffeine counts as a sufficient equivalent?”

“Tony—“

“No, sorry, I don’t have time for this right now. Look, I’m gonna be blunt about it. I need to talk to you, I think we should take a look at the fancy app you’re hiding probably somewhere in your pockets because I don’t have a vending machine in here, so I’m guessing you’ve still got the precious. We’ve gotta learn something about it before anyone throws your creepy boyfriend into an MRI or anything.”

Steve freezes for a moment, blink his confusion away. “I don’t think this is a good idea.”

“I’m not gonna run the program, I’m not stupid. JARVIS can analyze its code without setting anything off, if you don’t trust me, I’m not gonna touch it, we’ll leave it all to J, huh?”

“Tony, I appreciate your help, but maybe we should use other sources first? Search the files, try to contact Natasha, I don’t know.”

“Steve.” Tony leans against the wall, though whether it’s for dramatic effect or because he’s tired, Steve can’t tell. “I’ve already tried. There’s nothing. I searched everything Natasha dumped on the web, I searched everything we have on the Winter Soldier, declassified SHIELD files, classified SHIELD files, government files I once hacked into, decrypted Hydra files I found. Everything, and there’s not a word on the goddamn kill switch. So yes, that flash drive is all we have, the only possible source of information.”

Steve doesn’t know what to say. He’s a little shocked, and moved as hell, that Tony would stay up all night to try to learn about the kill switch Hydra put in Bucky.

Besides, he can’t pretend the device doesn’t exist, can’t run from these thoughts for his own comfort because it can only lead to a disaster. And if there’s anyone capable of cracking this thing, it must be Tony. It’s definitely worth a try. Maybe it’ll allow them to wake Bucky earlier rather than later.

“All right.” Steve slides his hands into his pocket and fiddles with the flash drive. “I guess now’s just fine.”

“Okay, Cap, I’ll see you in my lab in, say, fifteen minutes?”

“I’ll be there.”

So Tony leaves and Steve’s alone with Bucky again. He looks at Bucky again and what strikes him is the peculiar peace he thinks he can see on his face; the kind of peace that only comes with the respite of oblivion. Steve may not like the induced coma, but Bucky’s closed eyes are _calm_ and after being captured by Hydra for the third time in his life, he’s free from them again, and even if he’s not aware of it, at least he’s not in pain or fear. Steve will take it as consolation enough for the time being.

“Don’t you worry, pal. We’re gonna work it out.” His hand finds Buck’s shoulder again. “You’re not alone anymore. You’re not alone in this.” He runs his fingers through Bucky’s hair. “I’ll be back soon.”

Once he leaves the room, he doesn’t let himself stop moving, goes for the stairs rather than the elevator, afraid that if he stops for a while, he’ll start second-guessing himself, and he’s already made the decision.

Tony’s lab hasn’t changed since he last saw it: just the right amount of ever-present mess, several empty mugs, a robot refusing to respect his personal space.

“Hi, DUM-E.” Steve smiles as DUM-E crashes into him, surprisingly gentle, even if Steve can't be sure if this is supposed to be a hug or a hit.

DUM-E makes a happy noise in response. Probably a hug, then.

“He missed you, Cap.”

“Yeah, I missed him too.” Steve pats the robot, circles him and stands next to Tony. “So, what now?”

“I’d gladly tell you to just hook the drive into this special extra-secure slot, but no. First, Jarvis, give me the switch search report, yeah, thanks. First, here’s the analysis of everything we have on the Winter Soldier, and as I already told you, there’s not a word on the kill switch, if that’s what it is at all, but what I didn’t tell you is that we found three lines that may or may not implicitly refer to it.”

Steve frowns and turns towards the huge screen – or is it actually the wall? – to look at the scanned document.

“Exact date unknown, though I believe this excerpt comes from the eighties. A short report concerning a medical procedure that might have been a surgery.”

Steve reads, mouthing the words under his breath.

_The procedure is completed. The asset’s body hasn’t rejected the enhancement. Tests were run and the asset was woken after 72 hours; though a little confused at first, he quickly showed signs of recognition and obeyed every command without hesitation._

“You thinks that’s when they planted the switch in him?”

“Your guess’s just as good as mine, amigo.”

“Of course. Is the next one more precise?”

“Jarvis.”

The image changes.

“Is this… an invoice?”

“Bingo. But read the description.”

“Coding and programming services," Steve reads aloud, his frown deepening.

“Yup. And here’s the third one.”

The screen fills with letter sequences that make no sense to Steve. He looks at Tony, blinking in confusion.

“This is the code?” The idea sounds so wild he expects Tony to scold him or start laughing hysterically, but no.

“Probably yes. Maybe not.” Tony shrugs. “This part here is just a sample, though, an excerpt from a larger file. There’s only one problem. This may be a language developed specifically for Hydra. I’ve seen the look on your face and I know this means nothing to you. Trouble is, it doesn’t mean much more to me. It’s either very complicated and this part may not be enough to make enough sense of it to actually use it, or it’s encrypted, but we’ve run all tests we could and it still doesn’t quite add up.”

“Any chance it’s fake, then?”

“I’d rather go for poor quality. Remember, this comes from actual Hydra files. Why would they keep a page of fake coding in there?” Steve shrugs. “Exactly. I don’t think they would. Maybe there are significant errors in this version.”

“So it’s basically useless.”

“It’s certainly not very useful right now.”

“Well, shit.”

“Yeah.”

“Means if we hook up the drive, we have no idea what to expect?”

Tony shakes his head. “Yes and no. We’ve got no details, but I do expect some kind of control panel and a very secure coding, which means it should be hard to break into the core of the whole thing. Now, I know you’re worried, but Jarvis is ready to try to read as much of the code as possible without launching anything. If it looks like shit may go wrong, he’ll stop, and mind you, computers think way faster than human brains.”

“Sir, I’m offended.”

“Oh come on, J, I know you’re more than a computer, I’m just keeping things simple for Cap here.”

“He should be offended as well.”

But Steve is too focused on the task at hand and a little stuck on the risks of it to pay much attention to meaningless chatter right now. He already hates himself for what he’s about to say, but he has to. Just has to.

“Tony, do you promise you’re as prepared as you can ever be and this is the safest you can make it?”

Miraculously, Tony doesn't follow Jarvis's humor, and even though he keeps the dissmisive-careless demeanor, there's something solemn in his eyes.

“Cross my heart and hope to die.”

“Okay.”

Steve reaches into his pocket and produces a flash drive – nothing special, to be honest, just a plain white piece of electronic equipment that couldn’t seem less harmful. He sets it on the table in front of Tony to be picked up.

Tony turns the drive in his hand, then slides it into the slot before Steve can change his mind and decide to snatch it from him half a second before it’s too late.

Then, with no warning at all, the room goes completely dark.


End file.
